Category: Reviews

Torchwood: Miracle Day, Episode 4

Escape to LA

Hmm. Is it a good idea to derive your episode title from one of John Carpenter’s more rubbish movies? At least, I guess, Escape to LA was rather better than Carpenter’s Escape from it, though that’s not especially difficult.

Thankfully, the plot seemed to move up a gear this week, and things have actually started happening. Going to LA has given our heroes the chance to actually walk around in iconic LA locations – well, Venice Beach, at least. Of course, they were in LA all along, last week’s establishing shot of the Washington Memorial notwithstanding. But now LA is actually LA, and not pretending to be Washington any more, the director doesn’t have to be quite so circumspect about choosing locations. Mind you, the earlier scenes set in Washington this episode seemed even less convincing as a result. Also, speaking as someone who owns a military greatcoat, I hate to imagine how much John Barrowman was sweating under his in the California heat. Mine is too hot to wear even in a British summer!

The gang had flown to sunny California to infiltrate shady drug company Phicorp, and pull off a server-switching heist that required Gwen to dress as Audrey Hepburn and present herself at their reception desk for ‘training’. It has to be said, the ‘hair up’ look does not suit Eve Myles – it makes her face look a very odd shape. The heist formed one part of what are now clearly delineating into distinct plot threads. It’s clear now that Dr Juarez is in the ‘consequences of the Miracle’ plotline, as she explores what not dying means for society, while the Torchwood gang have the ‘find out how this happened’ plotline, and Oswald Danes and Jilly Kitzinger fit into the ‘how might people benefit?’ plotline. These do intersect from time to time, and will, presumably, all link up by the end of it. Right now though, it’s getting like watching several stories that make phone call to each other occasionally.

Phone calls, in fact, are an integral part of the ‘soap opera’ plotline that’s thankfully getting more germane to the rest of the plot, even though it seems mighty frustrating to professional intelligence man Rex that this gang of amateurs spend half their time chatting to their relatives. Rex himself is not immune to soap opera though, and this week delved into it by paying a visit to his shiftless father, who conveniently lives in LA. This scene didn’t actually achieve much except for establishing that Rex and his dad don’t get on, and it wouldn’t surprise me if we don’t see anything in the way of payoff to this – it seemed almost irrelevant, and I found myself almost nodding off as the scene progressed.

Meanwhile, Esther’s heavily-telegraphed unwise visit to her sister resulted in her sister being locked up and her children taken into care. That went well. As if to make matters worse, it also put her, and our heroes on the radar of a genuinely scary assassin, who’s a bit pissed off that his USP of killing people has been rendered rather redundant by the Miracle. So he resorts to being very, very nasty instead – pity poor Nicholas Frumkin, who loses an eye and a hand so the bad guy can get into the Phicorp computer room and then threaten Gwen with similar nastiness. Ironically, given Rex’s ease at getting in, it seems that wasn’t even necessary. This seemed a little unclear – did the fire alarm open all the doors to the secure server room? If so, why bother with all the elaborate deception in the first place? They could have just set off the alarm to get in.

The assassin – referred to in the Radio Times as simply ‘the gentleman’ – was a genuinely charismatic performance from an actor who looked vaguely familiar, but who I couldn’t quite place. After a glance at the Radio Times cast list for the forthcoming British showing, I was rather astounded to discover that it was C Thomas Howell, who used to be a bit of a pinup of mine in the 80s. He hasn’t aged well, looks wise, but that grizzled look and rasping voice fit the sinister character very well. It’s a character that seemed to belong in the X Files conspiracy organisation, what with his black ops euphemisms and cryptic monicker. Hardly surprising then to discover that this episode was co-written by John Shiban, who was responsible for many of the more impenetrable conspiracy episodes in The X Files’ later years.

Howell1Howell2

C Thomas Howell: early 80s (left) and now (right)

As with that show, we’re finally getting some answers about a nebulous conspiracy that only pose more questions. Thanks to Howell, we now know that Jack has been targeted specifically for death – but why? Everything that’s happening is because of something Jack said or did a long, long time ago – but what? Those responsible have been around for a very, very long time – but who are they? “They used to have names. And they were-” And then Rex shoots him in the throat in a groan-makingly cliched effort to extend the best before date of the plot’s mysteries. This frustrates Gwen, who seems not to have considered that the undying assassin can presumably still write.

So, some nicely set up stuff, very X Files, that nonetheless plays off Torchwood’s own mythology. Rex and Esther still don’t seem to accept that Jack has been around for many centuries and comes from another planet, but that’s obviously crucial to what’s happening. Still no answer to whether the bad guys – let’s call them ‘the rotating triangle people’ – are actually aliens, but it’s seeming much more likely.

With, finally, some satisfying movement in the conspiracy plot, the rotating triangle people also stuck their oar in on the ‘consequences for society’ plot too. This was enlivened this week by a rather unsubtle Sarah Palin analogue, Ellis Hartley Monroe, who was campaigning for the segregation of ‘the dead’. Clad in a pink twin set and eulogising her status as a sensible mother, Mare Winningham brought her to life as a pretty clear dig at conservative America and the Tea Party in particular. The character may have been a little broadbrush to make a convincing antagonist – though she’d certainly fit well into the narrative staples of the X Men comics – so it was perhaps a relief that the rotating triangle people decided she was surplus to requirements and could be despatched to a handy car crusher. This was presumably a bit of wish-fulfilment on the writers’ part as to what might happen to such Tea Party harridans, but the obvious fact that she’d live through the experience – visualised unforgettably as one frantically moving eyeball in the depths of the crushed block of car – was this week’s really gruesome bit.

The reason the rotating triangle people no longer needed her was thanks to Oswald Danes, who stepped up this week to deliver a scarily inspirational speech at the first of the medical internment camps for the ‘dead’. Bill Pullman seems to have modified his performance a bit this week, and there were fewer of those inexplicable Christopher Walken style pauses in his delivery. His speech was deliciously sinister to an audience that knows his true feelings, particularly when he started becoming somewhat messianic. It actually made me wonder whether the speech was written with Pullman in mind, as a deliberate pastiche of the astoundingly awful ‘rousing’ speech that was the low point of Independence Day.

As a result of all this, we also found out that Jilly Kitzinger may be a cold bitch under the smiling, glam exterior, but she doesn’t like Oswald one bit. It’s his hands; she can’t get past what they once did. This was a nicely played scene, with Lauren Ambrose again pretty much the best of the guest actors, and nicely turned on its head some of our expectations about Jilly. Not only does she have some scruples – not that they affect her work – but she’s not the conspiracy insider we suspected.

But for me, the nicest thing about the episode was seeing Rhys and Wales again, to remind me that this was Torchwood after all, not just some overhyped new American sci fi show. Mind you, while the meagre glimpses at the UK did give a kind of fond nostalgia for the Torchwood of old, they seemed oddly out of place in this new world. It feels like the show still has something of an identity crisis – something it’s always had, actually – and this new start in America has only made that more evident. Rex and Esther often seem to belong to a different show than Jack and Gwen, despite being in the same scene together, and it’s a show that Rex and Esther fit into more comfortably than Jack and Gwen. I don’t know how much of that feeling is a holdover from what we’ve been used to with Torchwood in the past, and maybe newbie viewers don’t get that impression.

Still, at least we now have some movement in a plot that seemed to be getting bogged down in the consequences of the Miracle rather more than investigating its cause. Nice to see Russell T Davies moving towards the same kind of dystopian society previously visualised in Doctor Who episode Turn Left (as he planned the overall plot, I presume the internment camp stuff is his). And a couple of great guest turns from Mare Winningham and C Thomas Howell; Howell in particular I would have liked to have seen more of as an ongoing bad guy. The guest spots have in general been rather good, even if I still can’t get past the impression that Wayne Knight will forever be Dennis Nedry out of Jurassic Park. With John De Lancie due to feature soon, hopefully I can get past thinking of him as Star Trek’s Q…

Torchwood: Miracle Day, Episode 3

Dead of Night

DeadOfNight

Right then, here’s all that sex we were promised, apparently crammed into one episode as if to make up for the lack of it in the last two. Torchwood has always had a rather adolescent desire to show how ‘grown up’ it all is, and in the first series at least, this seemed to consist of all the team having sex left right and centre, their sexuality changing from week to week as the plot demanded. At least Miracle Day has been consistent there so far; Jack went to bed with a guy, and Rex with Dr Vera, though the latter did seem to smack of plot convenience. There’d never been anything approaching chemistry between them before this, but a bit of shagging and she’s all ready to infiltrate shady drug company Phicorp on behalf of Torchwood. James Bond would be proud of Rex’s ‘shag and recruit’ skills.

Mind you, with events starting to move on – we discovered that Phicorp had been stockpiling painkillers because they knew the Miracle was coming, a new cult of ‘the Soulless’ has emerged and murder as a crime no longer exists – it seemed a bit of an odd time for Jack to suddenly dive into a convenient gay bar and randomly go on the pull. It’s as if Mulder was about to uncover the Smoking Man’s agenda, but decided a quick break with his porn collection was suddenly more pressing.

Still, the sex scenes were interestingly interwoven, presumably to keep both straight and gay audiences happy. And it is of course the first time we’ve seen Jack himself get down to some explicit rumpy pumpy, with Russell T Davies previously having decreed that, even in Torchwood, a regular Doctor Who character shouldn’t be seen to be doing the deed. That philosophy seems to persist at the BBC though; it’s become a bit of minor showbiz news that the British showing won’t include – at least in as much detail – Jack’s random shag. John Barrowman’s been in a bit of a tizz about that, insisting that the scene isn’t gratuitous but vital to the plot. While the Rex/Vera hookup does have this argument in favour of it (just), I’m not seeing any plot advancement in Jack finally being seen to put his money where his mouth is (so to speak). Maybe it will all become clear in later episodes. Perhaps the cute barman is actually an alien being…

Speaking of which, are aliens actually going to come into it this time? Besides the sex, there was some genuine plot advancement going on. The discovery that Phicorp (which sounds a bit like ‘Pfizer’ funnily enough) knew about the Miracle beforehand and are linked to ditzy but dubious PR lady Jilly Kitzinger, not to mention the CIA and Oswald Danes, makes this start to look like an entirely human conspiracy. We’re roughly a third of the way into this now, and by that point in Children of Earth, we already knew for sure that it was the work of aliens. Here, all we’ve had are some murmurs that the Miracle couldn’t have been worked by any technology on Earth, and Jack’s continuing babble about ‘morphic fields’ (an odd scientific philosophy espoused by biochemist Rupert Sheldrake that sounds suspiciously like The Force out of Star Wars). I suppose there’s also that nifty red cellphone the team nicked from Dennis Nedry Friedkin, which has a screen that shows a mysterious rotating triangle. Triangles are pretty alien, right?

So, no aliens yet, but things are starting to move along a bit, if at a rather leisurely pace. The team’s investigation into Phicorp’s mysterious warehouse was a nice scene, with the Raiders of the Lost Ark/X Files revelation of acres of shelves packed with painkillers. “Bigger on the inside,” says Jack sagely, though I don’t think he meant it literally – I’d be surprised if all of this has been caused by the Time Lords. Elsewhere, after an encounter with some rather violent police officers, Jilly Kitzinger has finally got her claws into Oswald Danes. Oswald’s clearly important – he seems to be the first to experience the Miracle, and now he’s hooked up with Phicorp. Jack, unfathomably, has already worked out that Oswald is significant, leading to an electric confrontation between the two in a TV station green room – all the more electric because we can’t quite work out why Oswald seems so important to Jack. All right, they’ve both caused the death of a child, but Jack at least is genuinely repentant, while Oswald chillingly reveals that all his crocodile tears are fake and, far from regretting it, he considers the murder his greatest moment. It was a well done scene, though I still can’t get used to Bill Pullman’s peculiar delivery, all slurred words and oddly placed pauses. Perhaps he’s in training to play Rupert Murdoch.

I was hoping for great things in the dialogue with Jane Espenson on writing duties this week, but I have to say I was mostly disappointed. The clumsy British/American slang misunderstandings (chips/crisps, ATM/cashpoint etc) were obviously there to establish a bit of friendly banter between the newly formed team, but instead gave the impression that Gwen had never seen an American film or TV show in her life. I think they do show those, even in Wales.

Still, Jack’s sex scene did yield up a couple of nice lines. The obligatory reference to safe sex (every gay sex scene has to have one to show how responsible we all are) was met with a “what’s the point?” attitude, which gave Jack the excellent rejoinder, “a lifetime of regret just got a whole lot longer”. And we were into “oo-er” territory as Rex complained about Jack nicking his painkillers – “Did you get impaled too?” “You should have seen the other guy”. Perhaps he came so hard he forgot where he was…

We did get some nice character development in Jack’s post-coital phone call to Gwen, which actually was germane to the plot. There’s always been this not-so-subtle subtext that Jack and Gwen are attracted to each other, and this looked like Jack actually trying to admit that to her. This was nicely juxtaposed with her video call to Rhys, as she seemed to just ignore Jack as soon as she saw her husband and her baby. I don’t think we’ve seen the last of this particular subplot.

And Esther and Rex are now a proper part of the Torchwood team, much to Rex’s annoyance, since they plainly have nowhere else to go. It’s a shame though that, since a strong introduction, Esther seems to be becoming a bit of a whiner. All right, it’s quite realistic that with everything that’s happening, she’d be so concerned about her sister, but it made her seem pretty ineffectual this week as she barely talked of anything else.

Top marks, character-wise, have to go to Jilly Kitzinger, marvellously portrayed by Lauren Ambrose as someone whose ditzy exterior and bright red lipstick mask a cold, bitchy corporate shark. Unlike Pullman’s weird mannerisms, Ambrose is taking the character to blackly humourous but convincing extremes, and that glamourous look combined with deadly serious intent mark her out as the most fun character here yet.

But it’s all still seeming a bit too leisurely for my taste. Children of Earth, with its five episode runtime, started out at full throttle and never let up; Miracle Day, by contrast, seems to be stuck at a slow idle speed. The longer run time does allow for deeper character development, but without a fast moving plot, that makes it more like a soap opera than a science fiction thriller. It’s maintaining my interest without thrilling me; let’s hope as the series progresses that it moves into a higher gear.

JFK bites the dust

Kennedys

So The Kennedys finally limped to what could charitably be called a conclusion this week, with the live TV event that was Bobby’s assassination at LA’s Ambassador Hotel in 1968. As my partner Barry said, it was probably unwise to have been playing such ominous music as Bobby was hustled out through the kitchens towards Sirhan Sirhan, who wasn’t even shown. Meanwhile, the now mute Joe Kennedy watched events unfold with frosty wife Rose from their posh New England mansion.

It’s been a peculiar beast, The Kennedys, suffering from much controversy in the US over smearing the Kennedy family. There are also a number of complaints about its historical veracity, though few seem to have mentioned that it was pretty terrible as an example of TV drama too. As it was produced by arch neocon Joel Surnow – the man responsible for the less than liberal politics of 24 – it was always reasonable to expect something of a hatchet job on America’s most revered Democrat President. And so it proved. After a fantastically bland opening episode that told us nothing about the Kennedy family we didn’t already know – Jack was a war hero, Joe a bit of a bastard with Nazi leanings, and Bobby a committed Catholic with an ever growing brood of children – we got to see JFK portrayed variously as indecisive, a puppet of his father, and a speed addict.

All of this does actually have some basis in history – though I question whether Jack’s supplier of amphetamines sounded quite so much like Dr Strangelove. Doing a mini series on this family is hardly new territory for American TV, but this ‘warts and all’ approach is definitely a new one. Surnow seems to be trying to tell the story of the family as a whole, rather than just JFK, in the style of The Godfather. It’s a lofty ambition, but one that doesn’t come off, mostly because the writing is so broadbrush that the people in it are more caricatures than characters.

Greg Kinnear does well as John F Kennedy, though in keeping with really cheesy historical drama, he’s been made up to resemble the real President as closely as possible. Struggling manfully with appalling dialogue delivered from underneath an immobile, sculpted coiffure, Kinnear does his best to deliver a performance, and just about manages – though it’s a surprise to hear that it was considered good enough to merit an Emmy nomination. That’s no slur on Kinnear; I think Olivier would have struggled with a script this bad.

Also up for an Emmy is Barry Pepper, who fortunately only has to endure Bobby Kennedy’s haircut rather than having full facial reconstruction. Pepper too does his best with some terrible dialogue, making Bobby seem a peevish, headstrong figure in the administration as he baits Sam Giancana and slags off the head of the Joint Chiefs.

Giancana is less of a bad guy here than J Edgar Hoover, though, and Enrico Colantoni plays the founder of the FBI as a thuggish heavy. It’s surprising that anyone could play Hoover with less subtlety than Bob Hoskins did in Nixon, but with the aid of this script, Colantoni manages it. Plus, any fan of Galaxy Quest will find it hard to take affable alien leader Mathesar seriously as one of the biggest bogeymen of the twentieth century.

Probably the ultimate bad guy in the series, though, is the notorious Joe Kennedy Sr, here portrayed as a cold, manipulative, power-hungry monster in the mould, predictably, of Don Vito Corleone. He’s played by superb British actor Tom Wilkinson, who makes the surprising choice of playing the Kennedy patriarch as Hannibal Lecter. It’s true, honestly – he has the same dead eyed expression, and precisely the same cold drawl.

Oh yes, the accents! After more than twenty years of Mayor ‘Diamond Joe’ Quimby in The Simpsons impersonating JFK’s Boston drawl, it’s hard to take them seriously. Kinnear and Pepper do well enough, though Kinnear in particular has a tendency to come off more as an impressionist than an actor. Wilkinson doesn’t really bother with such cheap theatrics – after all, they would interfere with his Anthony Hopkins impersonation. But the award for most varied, inconsistent and downright terrible attempt at a Boston accent must go to the horribly miscast Katie Holmes as Jackie, who seems to have come from a different part of the East Coast in every scene.

Each episode dealt with a different historical event – the civil rights riots in Mississippi, the Cuban Missile crisis, the bay of pigs – and was preceded by a portentous quote from a poet or a book of the Bible that had some vague relevance to what was about to happen. It basically seemed to present history as a kind of cheap soap opera, in which people strode about in rooms agonising, then were unconvincingly inserted into genuine archive footage.

Terrible drama, then, but somehow compellingly watchable, like that other Surnow opus, 24. After the blandness of the first episode, I almost didn’t watch any more, but kept coming back week after week to see how much worse it could get. Trumpeted as something of a broadcasting coup by the British History Channel – after the US History Channel refused to show it – it was noticeable that the Radio Times’ enthusiasm seemed to die off after about a fortnight, and suddenly it was being shown two episodes a night, as if to get it over with as quickly as possible. Of course, if it is meaning to show the Kennedy family as a whole, this might mean we’re due another five seasons in which Ted gets annoyed in the Senate. Somehow I doubt it though, as the series didn’t consider Ted interesting enough to even warrant a mention. For that I’m sure Ted would have been grateful. Despite a surprising amount of Emmy nominations – for best miniseries, and acting nods for Kinnear, Pepper and Wilkinson – this was the sort of historical drama that makes The Tudors look like I, Claudius.

Torchwood: Miracle Day, Episode Two

Rendition

Torchwood: Episode 2; 2011; Rendition

So, with the slam bang opener out of the way, it’s time for Torchwood’s latest story to progress. Which it doesn’t much, in this second part. With Doris Egan on writing duties this week, this episode’s as much about character development as action, and consequently Jack, Gwen and Rex spend the entire hour on a plane to the US engaging in comic relief banter with a cute young air steward who’s definitely not gay (“It was only that one time!”). It’s left to Esther, on the ground at the surprisingly claustrophobic Langley HQ of the CIA, to progress the plot this week, though the plane trip is enlivened by a tensely done poisoning crisis.

That said, there are some interesting plot seeds planted here. Dr Juarez is looking like more of a central character than she did last week, as she recognises the necessity of changing medical protocol in a situation where emergency rooms are filling up with horribly injured people who just won’t die. “We’ll have to restructure the entire healthcare system in this country!”, she declaims. Good luck with that one, the President’s not had much joy with it.

Meanwhile, there’s a conspiracy at the CIA. Given that this is Torchwood, this is hardly a surprise. Someone wants the last of the team expunged, and happily for them, it seems that Jack is now the only person on Earth who can die. Esther finds herself caught up in it when she’s summoned to see her shifty boss Friedkin, who turns out to be Dennis Nedry out of Jurassic Park. Actually, between that role and Officer Don in Third Rock From the Sun, it’s a little difficult to take Wayne Knight seriously in anything, so it’ll be interesting to see how he develops as a credible villain.

Esther, it turns out, is being set up, her clearances revoked and a mysterious $50,000 payment from China deposited in her bank. Cue much 24-style evasive action around CIA corridors as she tries to get out with a stolen ID card and nicks a workmate’s Mini Cooper. I‘m not sure if the Mini is an example of product placement, but it’s nice to see a European car getting a starring role. It also gives Gwen some nice comic lines as Esther meets our heroes at the airport for a getaway – “This escape’s rubbish. I thought all you Americans drove great big SUVs?”

Meanwhile, Bill Pullman continues to give an oddly mannered performance as Oswald Danes, with a nicely written scene in which he nicks all the food from a TV news hospitality table and discusses the quality of food in prison (“You can always taste the piss.”). Danes is obviously going to be a important, as his tearful apology on live TV brings him Twitter followers, the new indicator of cultural significance. Later, he gets an offer he can refuse from a dodgy looking PR lady played by Lauren Ambrose out of Six Feet Under. She then also turns up to blag a cigarette from Dr Juarez at ‘Washington City Hall’, which looks suspiciously like LA City Hall.

Indeed, the locations in the show are oddly anonymous for a setting as iconic as Washington DC. I haven’t seen a single shot of the Capitol, the White House or the Washington Memorial yet – even The X Files used to show them in second unit establishing shots. My guess is that we’re mainly looking at generic LA locations that can stand in for anything. In fact, Cardiff has had a better showing than DC, with that sequence in the Bay area last week, though ‘Heathrow Airport’ looked rather smaller and less impressive than usual – almost, actually, like Cardiff Airport. Funny, that.

Given that last week Rex got from DC to London quickly enough for Esther to apparently wait on the phone from when he took off until he landed, much emphasis was given this week to the length of the flight he, Jack and Gwen were on. This gave them time to get to know each other a bit, and Jack and Gwen got some nice catchup dialogue – “What do I have to do, nearly blow up before you turn up?” And the desperate scrabble to mix an antidote to the arsenic Jack had been poisoned with was actually rather nicely done, a model of how to achieve a scene of action and tension with only a few people in one small set.

We get a few more gruesome scenes of the consequences when people can’t die, too. There’s nothing quite as nasty as last week’s live autopsy, but the finger-twitching severed arm was amusing, and it was perhaps unintentionally funny to see rogue CIA poisoner Lin (the Terminatrix-like Dichen Lachmann) lurching towards our heroes with her head on backwards.

Continuity-wise, we’ve established for the newbies that Jack is bisexual with mention of an ex boyfriend who used arsenic to make his skin look good, and attention has finally been drawn to how odd it is that Jack still insists on wearing a 1940s RAF uniform. Mind you, he did look strange without it when he donned a raincoat to pretend to be FBI agent ‘Owen Harper’ last week. We’ve also discovered that Jack’s vortex manipulator that he wears on his wrist is capable of monitoring bodily functions like sodium levels – and who knows what else? With the emphasis given to the gizmo this week, it’s obviously going to play an important part somewhere down the line, though no mention has yet been of its ability to transport the user anywhere in time and space. Sensibly, Jack chooses not to impart this information to the CIA.

With Jack spending half the episode poisoned and near death, there wasn’t too much of John Barrowman this week – which some may consider something of a relief – so we spent more time getting to know the new characters. Alexa Havins is excellent as Esther Drummond, who now seems even more like Lois, the government insider from Children of Earth. Arlene Tur is obviously going to play a major role as Dr Vera Juarez, who oddly seems to be the only medical professional able to grasp the ramifications of what’s going on, and Lauren Ambrose is already incredibly shifty as PR shark Jilly Kitzinger. Meanwhile, for those of us who like a bit of eye candy, there were a couple of pretty young men – Finn Wittrock was fun as air steward Danny, and Dr Juarez was aided by a sweet young scientist in a check shirt, played by gay comic actor Jeffery Self. Nice to see that Russell T Davies’ Doctor Who policy of casting at least one cute young guy per episode lives on here.

Two episodes in, and this is progressing quite nicely. With its lengthier, ten episode run time, it doesn’t quite have the dramatic urgency of Children of Earth, but the flipside of that is that we get more time to explore the characters and the what-if scenario. This week seemed to be mostly  further establishing plotlines to come, as last week’s was to establish the main scenario and who Torchwood actually were. There was a bit of action, but nothing to rival last week’s barmy Land Rover/helicopter chase – it actually felt like the show was taking a bit of a breather to sort itself out before getting on with the story proper, and also allowing itself to show the important sense of humour so absent from its first series.

Next week – the first of several episodes this series by Jane Espenson, who I worship as some kind of deity for her work on Buffy, Angel and Battlestar Galactica. I’ll try to be objective…

Torchwood: Miracle Day, Episode 1

The New World

MiracleDayBeach

I’ve been lazy about writing TV reviews since the mid season break in Doctor Who. And for a while I’ve been considering writing another episode by episode series of reviews – I really should have done the excellent Game of Thrones, and still might do the new season of True Blood – though as of tonight that’ll be three episodes in, so I’ll have some catching up to do.

Fortunately, though, it fits in with my tradition of writing Who reviews that I can now do something similar for the much-hyped return of ‘sister’ show, Torchwood. Though that description doesn’t really seem adequate any more. While still nominally a spinoff from Doctor Who, Torchwood’s continuing evolution means that the two shows don’t really seem connected any more. Creator and showrunner of the new series Russell T Davies claims that they still are very much set in the same universe, and it’s not inconceivable that Miracle Day will feature some reference to the time travelling mad man with a box. But Torchwood was always tonally in a weird, fluctuating universe of its own, into which the Doctor would not have fit easily.

Since its inception as an ‘adult’ variant of Doctor Who in the heady, Who-crazed days of 2006, Torchwood has never settled down into its own identity, with each series quite different from the last. Series one was an intentionally ‘dark’, humourless affair, its ‘adult’ nature signalled by masses of gratuitous sex and violence, with swearing shoehorned uncomfortably into the scripts to show how grown up it was. Grown up in the sense of an adolescent boy, anyway, as initial showrunner Chris Chibnall gave an unwilling world classic quotes such as “When was the last time you came so hard you forgot where you were?”. The characters were annoying and hard to like, even the formerly ebullient Captain Jack Harkness, and everyone seemed to be having sex with everyone else, regardless of gender or even species. Despite some intriguing premises, and that quirky Welsh setting, it was never a show I found that enjoyable.

Series two learned some lessons from that, reinjecting some much needed humour and toning down the over the top sex and swearing, though it was as violent as ever. It had a likeable villain in the form of James Marsters’ Captain John Hart, and went about reinventing the regular characters in a way that changed them from being irritating to likeable, even Burn Gorman’s ultra annoying Owen Harper. Notably, it shifted from BBC3 to BBC2, and seemed a little more mainstream as a result.

With the success of that much improved second series, Torchwood found itself changing again – now on BBC1, it was retooled as a much hyped ‘five day television event’ called Children of Earth. Taking a prime post-watershed slot on the main BBC channel with episodes broadcast every weekday, Children of Earth was a massive critical and popular success. The tale of a powerful alien race called ‘the 456’ and their demand for 10% of Earth’s children to take as tortured, drug-producing playthings was a masterful blend of political thriller, action and conspiracy story; compared to a sci fi version of Spooks, it was actually infinitely better than that, with the scenes of the British government discussing how best to capitulate with the aliens being especially chilling.It also pretty much ended the Torchwood universe, as their secret Cardiff Bay HQ the Hub was totalled in part one, and the ridiculous ‘Torchwoodmobile’ (a black Range Rover kitted out with unnecessary bulges and fluorescent lights) was stolen, never to be seen again. And with the team already having lost two of its regular characters the year before, they were further whittled down as Russell T Davies, now in charge of the show, killed off the inexplicably loved Ianto Jones, much to fanboy dismay.

But that was two years ago now. Russell T Davies, now freed of the enormous workload of Doctor Who, has been in LA with his old cohort Jane Tranter, shopping a new Torchwood idea around the American networks. With Davies seen as quite a success story after Queer as Folk, Doctor Who and of course Torchwood itself, it was only a matter of time before someone bit. That someone was cable channel Starz, also responsible for Chris Chibnall’s current toe-curlingly bad series Camelot. Old school fans immediately began to fret, not just about the identity of the BBC’s co-producer, but about the very fact that it was going to be, primarily, and American production. Surely, they worried, the Americans don’t produce drama as good as the British – won’t Torchwood lose its amazingly high quality?

Actually, the Americans very much do produce drama as good as the British these days – as any viewer of Mad Men, Deadwood and Game of Thrones could tell you. And the fans needn’t have worried – on the basis of part one, Miracle Day is nearly as good as Children of Earth.

I say ‘nearly’ with the reservation that this is a ten part story rather than a five part one, and doesn’t hit with the same slam bang as the beginning of Children of Earth. It also necessarily has to introduce the characters and premise of Torchwood all over again for a completely new audience. However, Russell has shown he’s good at doing this before, with Doctor Who in 2005, and he does it again here.

It works by having Torchwood as a now-defunct organisation who’ve become the focus of a group of young, implausibly good-looking CIA operatives. They’re baffled by the sudden appearance of the name ‘Torchwood’ and associated files on all their computers, and want to know what the hell it’s all about, which helpfully delves into the concept for any new viewers. But that takes second fiddle to the big premise on which Russell’s building the story – people have stopped dying. Nobody is dying anywhere in the world, however life-threatening and horrific their injuries – a fact which nominal hero Rex Matheson finds out when he’s impaled on a steel bar hurtling through his windscreen from the truck in front.

It soon turns out that people not dying could be a bit of a problem, as Gwen Cooper finds out in an interesting scene with old pal PC Andy. Taking into account the birth rate and the now defunct death rate, the world population will be so large that global famine could hit within weeks. Wars are problematic when you can’t actually kill the enemy, but North Korea are fronting up to invade South Korea, emboldened by the fact that their troops can’t be killed. And it’s no fun living forever if you’ve had horrific injuries that should have killed you, as is graphically demonstrated by a blackly humourous and chilling ‘live autopsy’ scene on a man who’s been, quite literally, blown to bits. “What’ll happen if we cut off his head?” “Let’s find out.”

It’s a good premise, typical of Russell’s interesting ‘what if?’ ideas, although I seem to recall the conceit having formerly been played out in an Outer Limits episode. The script for part one is by Russell himself, and makes the most of the idea, while reinventing Torchwood yet again. Starting from the viewpoint of the new characters, it’s a long way into the episode before we see Gwen Cooper, and even longer before we see Captain Jack. But when they appear, they’re every bit the characters they always were. Gwen, lying low with husband Rhys after the events of Children of Earth, is as marvellously Welsh as ever,  and both Eve Myles and Kai Owen are a refreshingly normal pair of characters – as they always were. About a third of the first episode takes place in Wales, allowing incoming American Rex to do a comical fish out of water act – “What’s this bridge?” “The Severn Bridge, it links Wales to England?” “What, Wales is like New Jersey? Wait, I have to pay for this bridge?!”

Captain Jack is almost his old self too. Reappearing to save the life of CIA researcher Esther when a masked gunman blows up the CIA archive, he then plies Esther with amusingly named memory suppressant ‘retcon’ in a virtual replay of the scene with Gwen from the very first episode of series one. John Barrowman’s accent seems a little out of place here, though I can’t put my finger on why – it’s a real American accent, but just seems almost overplayed. But Jack is till Jack, clad in his traditional 1940 RAF gear, though not yet trying to chat anyone up.

Indeed, there’s a surprising lack of sex, or even innuendo about sex, given Torchwood’s past history. I gather some quite graphic scenes are coming up though, some even involving Jack himself for the first time. Interestingly, some of the graphic sex, I hear on the grapevine, will be cut out for British transmission, though extra dramatic scenes will be added that weren’t in the American broadcast. Meaning die hard fans will have to watch both versions for comparison purposes!

As if to make up for the lack of sex, there’s action aplenty, and on a scale that the poor cash-strapped BBC can rarely afford by itself. Aside from the aforementioned blowing up of the CIA archive, the episode culminates in a riotous helicopter/Land Rover chase across a Welsh beach, with Gwen (visibly loving every minute of her return to action) blasting away from the back of the car with a rocket launcher. As the helicopter fairly convincingly spirals to destruction mere inches from our heroes’ heads, it’s hard not to emit a Keanu Reeves style, “Whoa…”

Also in the car is nominal hero Rex, whose central dilemma is that, should the ‘miracle’ end, his injuries may well mean his death. Thus far, Rex is fun but little more than a cipher. Mekhi Phifer brings a lot of charisma to the role, but we don’t really know much about him as yet, and his comic stooge role in some of the Wales scenes seems a little forced. And his actual investigating mostly seems to be done via the phone to his Chloe O’Brian alike assistant Esther. Esther, engagingly played by Alexa Havins, neatly fills the ‘baffled innocent’ role filled by Gwen in series one and Lois in Children of Earth. n fact, thus far, she’s the most likeable and rounded of the new characters.

The other new character we meet in episode one is potentially the most chilling and controversial. Oswald Danes is a convicted paedophile and murderer, who justified the killing of his last victim with the phrase, “she should have run faster”. The failure of Danes’ execution is the first, uncomfortably graphic, instance of death having ceased to function, and Danes wants out of prison on the grounds that his sentence has been carried out – it’s not his fault that death has taken a holiday.

Danes is incarnated by Bill Pullman, probably the biggest ‘star’ name in the cast – if ‘star’ is the right word for someone whose best known role is playing second fiddle to a lot of hyperkinetic effects shots in Independence Day. Actually that’s a bit unfair – Pullman has given some good performances, and takes on a doozie here as his first villain. But he’s giving a very odd, mannered performance so far. In the scene with him demanding his release from the state governor’s assistant, his dialogue is delivered almost as if he’s had a stroke. This could be meant as after effects from the injection that should have killed him, but it’s not spelt out if that’s the case. Still, mannerisms aside, Pullman is quite magnetic in the role. It’s not clear yet what he has to do with the main story, but given the casting and the focus on him in episode one, Danes is clearly going to be a major player.

Episode one, then, makes clear that this is a continuation rather than a reboot, and neatly introduces the ideas to a potential new audience. Even the old theme tune plays out in the background of the new score, though theme composer Murray Gold has now supplanted Ben Foster on scoring duties. This is a well-scripted, well-acted, and well-directed show that should keep the old fanboys happy without excluding newbies. And if anything, the lack thus far of gratuitous sex and swearing makes it seem more grown up than the very first series did. With upcoming episodes by Jane Espenson (Buffy, BSG, Game of Thrones) and Doris Egan (Smallville, House), expect more rapturous – but hopefully shorter – blog entries soon.

Series 6, Episode 7: A Good Man Goes to War

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“Look, I’m angry, that’s new. Not sure what’s going to happen now.”

There’s a rather magnificent, fan produced, 13 minute faux anime version of Doctor Who on Youtube. If you haven’t seen it, go and have a look. Go on, I’ll wait…

(Plays teletext style music)

There. Great, isn’t it? It consists of beautifully produced crowd pleasing set pieces in which icons of the show are shoehorned into a typical series of anime action sequences. What it doesn’t have (and as an experiment in style, probably doesn’t really need) is any kind of coherent plot formed out of these sequences. Unfortunately, an actual episode of the show does need that, and arguably, that’s the problem with A Good Man Goes to War.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot to like about this episode. As the (unprecedented) mid season finale, it’s ‘the spectacular one’ at which they’ve clearly thrown all the money. It looks sensational, with masses of CG of varying quality all over the place to give it an epic feel. Director Peter Hoar has clearly got a good eye for vistas and action, and the Clerics’ asteroid base has the real feel of an epic Hollywood action movie villains’ lair. Not to mention some genuinely good spaceship action – the destruction of the Cyber Fleet in the pre-credits sequence looked sensational.

The episode is also brimming over with brilliant ideas. A lesbian Silurian detective hunting down Jack the Ripper in 1888 (the incurably silly Primeval is, coincidentally, heading for that year next week). A disgraced Sontaran is forced to act as a battlefield nurse rather than a warrior, the ultimate humiliation. Either of these sumptuously mounted set pieces could easily form the basis of an exciting episode in their own right, and Steve Moffat just chucks them blithely into the mix.

We also get much more expansion on the idea of the ‘Church Military’ concept first seen in last year’s Angels two-parter. The Headless Monks, mentioned then, are finally seen, and really are headless – the blank gap beneath their cowls reminded me of the similarly freaky Brotherhood of Demnos in 1976’s Masque of Mandragora. Crucially, they have no heads so that they act entirely from the heart – a metaphorical concept taken literally that’s a central theme of this episode. We also get throwaway lines that hint at how Christianity and the military work together. The Monks’ declaration that each ‘army’ must offer a ‘sacrifice’ hints at the idea that there might be other religions who have armies – a Jewish one perhaps, or Hindu or Muslim. And another throwaway line gives an idea as to the workings of Christianity in the far future as Colonel Manton refers to “the Papal mainframe herself”. Along with the inclusion of gay married couples, that proves the Church has really moved on in accepting science and women too!

In fact, dialogue was another strength of this episode. Aside from random lines hinting at staggering concepts, almost every line seemed to be an instantly quotable classic. Lorna Bucket says, portentously, “he meets a lot of people. Some of them remember. He’s like… I don’t know… a dark legend.” Rory, getting brilliantly heroic this week, enquires as the Cyber Fleet is destroyed, “Would you like me to repeat the question?” There was some great humour too, as one of the clerics declared, “We’re the thin fat gay married Anglican marines. Why would we need other names?” Later, as ‘the fat one’ is led unsuspecting into the Monks’ sacrificial chamber, he comments on their choice of interior decor: “I like this. Lot of red. Hope it’s not to hide the stains!” And when the Doctor finally appears, twenty minutes into the story, he immediately mocks the soldiers with, “Please point a gun at me if it’ll help you relax!”

Some immediately likeable characters too. Probably best were the lady detectives from 1888, Neve McIntosh again brilliant as Lady Vastra (her chauffeur is called Parker and says “Yes, m’lady”) and Catrin Stewart was fun as her maid/lover/assistant Jenny (the same name as the Doctor’s ‘daughter’? Hmmm). It’s hard to know what would have scandalised Victorian society more – an interspecies romance, a same sex romance, or an inter class romance! Dan Starkey was great fun as Sontaran Commander Strax, who seemed to be finding being a nurse more enjoyable than he had anticipated: “One day we may meet on the battlefield and I will slay your puny human form. Now get some rest.” And it was nice to see Simon Fisher-Becker back as fat, bald, blue Dorium Maldovar – a sort of futuristic version of Sidney Greenstreet in Casablanca.

So, yes, there was a lot in this episode that was really brilliant. Why then didn’t it really work for me? Firstly, I think, because there was simply too much of it. Each new idea was tossed eagerly into the mix without pausing for breath, making the whole thing seem like something of a staggering melee. It’s like when I first started cooking curries, and thought that the ideal way to do it would be to use the entire Schwartz spice range.

Secondly, to me at least, the fan-pleasing inclusion of so many old friends and foes seemed pretty gratuitous and self-indulgent. It reminded me of nothing more than Journey’s End, in which Russell T Davies similarly included every trope he’d established during his tenure as showrunner. That was slightly more forgivable though, as Russell was nearing the end of his tenure and wanted to sum everything up. Still, I didn’t think it worked then, and I don’t think it works here, particularly with Steve Moffat only a year and a half into his tenure. By the time the still-ridiculous spaceborne Spitfires turned up, I was getting pretty bored with it and wondering if we’d be treated to a return appearance by such memorable characters as Breen from Victory of the Daleks (remember her? Thought not). And while I’m on the subject, if the Doctor was collecting in favours from all his debtors and old friends, where the hell was Captain Jack Harkness?

Also as in RTD’s era, we got beautifully staged and brilliant set pieces that impressed but existed entirely outside of the plot. The introduction of all the Doctor’s allies fell into this category. This was possibly a good thing, though, as what plot there actually was probably only really merited about twenty minutes of screen time once the spectacle and set pieces were stripped away. I mean, what did the Doctor actually do? He sneaked into a top secret military base and rescued his companion. Sure, there was some advancement of the big plot arc, but essentially, that’s the gist of it. In some 70s episodes, he got that done in five minutes.

Of course, it was painted as something much more significant as that. The Doctor was angry! (Which isn’t really new, even for this incarnation). And River commented that “he’ll rise higher than ever before, then fall so much further”. But the stakes were, apparently, nowhere near as high as they’d been in the past. In fact, River’s statement more accurately sums up last year’s The Pandorica Opens, which has the same basic plot but plays for much higher stakes – the existence of all of space and time. In that one, the Doctor rises high as he sees off a gigantic, multi-baddie space fleet all by himself (not just a few piddling human soldiers), then falls far as he’s seemingly imprisoned for eternity while the universe is erased from existence. Whereas here, his ‘fall’ is losing Amy’s baby – a very big deal on a personal level, but lessened even on those terms by River’s big revelation. After all, if River was the baby, we know she’s going to be just fine.

Still, that revelation was played well, even if the last ten minutes were basically just exposition that even further unbalanced the structure of the plot. I can’t say it came as too much of a surprise that River was Amy’s daughter (that theory’s been all over the internet for weeks, not least in my earlier reviews!), but it was all very enigmatically played. When she told the Doctor himself, it was all played in half sentences and gestures – could she actually have told him more than she told Amy? She seemed to be gesturing at the Gallifreyan words on the Doctor’s cot every bit as much as the scrap of cloth within it. We still don’t really know the nature of her relationship with the Doctor, though he seemed amused and embarrassed that they had kissed. It only tells us part of who River is, so there’s still plenty more scope for mystery, and I’m glad Moffat isn’t giving us all the answers in one go.

Mind you, if River is Amy’s daughter, and Amy’s daughter was the girl in the space suit, how come she didn’t remember that at the time she was actually examining the suit? And what, if anything, should we make of the seemingly throwaway bit of innuendo when she first meets Rory this week; she says she’s been off with a Doctor from a different part of his timeline, and Rory jests, “unless there’s two of them…” And we now know that River is part Time Lord – or has a ‘time head’ as Amy referred to it earlier – because of being conceived while the TARDIS was in flight in the vortex. Can it be that easy to make a Time Lord? And if so, are we seeing some sort of origin story here? Some people have already said that, if River can regenerate, it makes a nonsense of her death in Silence in the Library. That’s definitely not the case though; she sacrificed herself there to avoid the Doctor’s death, and if that computer/brain connection would have killed him, then it surely would have killed her.

Still, the subject of Time Lords was central to the episode’s real theme, and amid all the sound and fury, I have to say that was handled well. Moffat was interested in what the Doctor has become, the consequences of it, and what will happen if he goes further down that path. It’s beginning to seem very reminiscent of the McCoy/Cartmel story arc and its enlargement in the Virgin New Adventures books. “Why would a Time Lord be a weapon?” muses the Doctor, to which Lady Vastra responds, “Well, they’ve seen you”. Matt Smith’s stunned realisation, as he sinks horrified into a nearby chair, was brilliantly well-played. The Doctor started out as a healer and a wise man – but now he’s a ‘dark legend’, ‘the oncoming storm’ and a warrior to be feared. RTD touched on this theme occasionally – most notably with Davros’ accusatory speech in Journey’s End – but never made it so central. It was underscored by River’s nicely judged speech about the word ‘Doctor’ meaning a healer entirely because of him, and what it might come to mean in the future. Interestingly, many fans have now dug out this little nugget from Steve Moffat, written on rec.arts.drwho back in 1995:

“Here’s a particularly stupid theory.  If we take “The Doctor” to be the Doctor’s name – even if it is in the form of a title no doubt meaning something deep and Gallifreyan – perhaps our earthly use of the word “doctor” meaning healer or wise man is direct result of the Doctor’s multiple interventions in our history as a healer and wise man.  In other words, we got it from him.  This is a very silly idea and I’m consequently rather proud of it. “

So he’s been thinking about this one for a while…

Overall then, A Good Man Goes to War is a slim plot padded out but unbalanced with some brilliant ideas and dialogue, standalone set pieces, and visual spectacle. Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoyed it, and still think it’s head and shoulders above the rest of what’s on television at the moment. But it seemed to me to be something of an incoherent melee, with too much of everything and not enough actual plot. The overall baddie, Madam Kovarian, still has no clear motivation and consequently comes across as a sneering pantomime villain. Mind you, I’m prepared to accept that this is because Moffat doesn’t want to show his full hand yet, and both she and this episode may be redeemed by further developments in the plot arc.

This episode may have disappointed me – and I gather a few others – partly because of that arc, and it’s worth noting that, of 7 episodes so far, only two haven’t been heavily connected with it. Some more strong standalone stories would be a very nice thing, especially if you want to attract more casual viewers who haven’t been following a complex overall plotline. But the arc may also mean that, when it’s over, we can look at all the preceding episodes in a new light. Let’s hope this is the case, when we reach the intriguingly titled Let’s Kill Hitler. More Doctor Who reviews in September – I’ll try to write something else in the mean time!

Series 6, Episode 6: The Almost People

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“Why? Why should we have to suffer for human beings?”

Hmm. Tricky one to review this – with that sudden dramatic switch in emphasis to the overall story arc in the last five minutes, it’s actually more like trying to assess the differing qualities of two episodes. Not since Utopia has an episode’s last few scenes changed the nature of the story so much. And yet, both aspects of the story informed each other in a way that made it, overall, rather better than last week’s somewhat predictable opener.

To start with though, the conclusion to the actual story of the Flesh and the Gangers was itself less of a predictable beast. As I said last week, there are some interesting, albeit familiar, themes being dealt with here, and even with the plot advancement being signalled a mile off as if by giant semaphore flags, both episodes dealt with them well, with some good dialogue and interesting characterisation.

What marked the conclusion out as rather more interesting, though, was the inclusion of the Ganger Doctor. Matt Smith was clearly relishing the possibilities available here, with two equally manic and excitable Eleventh Doctors to play with! The Ganger’s ‘post-regenerative trauma’, as it tried to sort through the information in a man who’s had eleven personalities, was a joy of fanwank as we heard lines from Hartnell, Pertwee, and then, marvellously, the actual voice of Tom Baker emerged to enquire as to the desirability of a jelly baby. But once settled down as Eleven, the Ganger made a great double act with the original Doctor, and their indistinguishability – apart from their shoes – became one of the key plot points.

Kudos again to director Julian Simpson for making the split screen shots of both Doctors work so well and look so effortless. And kudos to writer Matthew Graham for using the concept to further interestingly explore the nature of the artificial Flesh, and its status as a being in its own right. The Ganger Doctor was key to this, but as we later found out, there was a far more dramatic revelation in store.

The title, if I can get a bit fanwanky myself, seemed to encapsulate the theme. It seemed to me reminiscent of Ben Aaronovitch’s Virgin New Adventure title The Also People, which in itself I always thought derived from a line in Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – “the things are also people”. That, in a nutshell, was the theme of the story overall. The Flesh was more than a tool or a thing. Like Data in Star Trek TNG’s Measure of a Man, it had become a sentient being that should be accorded the rights of all other sentient beings.

This was illustrated in some actually quite graphic and horrifying ways. The pile of still conscious Ganger cast offs that Jennifer showed Rory was perhaps the most disturbing, with their still moving eyes and mouths. But perhaps more unnerving still was Ganger Jennifer’s assertion that she remembered every death she’d experienced as Flesh.

Here, though, we did see some more of the predictability emerge as to where these characters were going. As with, again, every Silurian story ever, Jennifer was clearly going to be the militant, driven Ganger who would stop at nothing to start a war out of bitterness, clearly for revenge. Her ultimate transformation into an almost well-realised deformed shrieking monster came as no particular surprise. Nor, given the setup last week, did Jimmy’s Ganger having to ultimately replace him as little Adam’s dad when the original Jimmy died. There was pathos, sure, but that was paint-by-numbers plotting.

Rather better was the treatment of Cleaves, with Raquel Cassidy again being magnetic in a dual role. It was fitting for the concept that Cleaves’ Ganger should be the first to experience cynical disillusionment with Jennifer’s fanatical revolution, as she shared her original’s character traits. Along with her original’s fatal blood clot – a point that was later vital to establish.

Having said that, not all of the characters were so well-defined. Marshall Lancaster’s Buzzer wasn’t given much to say or do, and his human original was despatched in short order, to no great emotional impact. And Leon Vickers’ Dicken, while looking pretty enough, wasn’t really given a personality at all, so when his human version sacrificed himself to save the others, it was no particular shock either. And what happened to all his sneezing in part one? I’d thought that might lead to some plot point or other. Or was it simply the only distinctive character trait the writer thought to give him?

The oncoming destruction of the crumbling factory as Gangers and humans tried to outwit each other and escape was well-handled by both writer and director, even if, again, we were seeing nothing new here. The scenario was actually handled so tensely as to allow me, at least, to forgive the fact that it was basically an Alien-inspired runaround. Others, I know, might not be so forgiving!

So the plotline was wrapped up fairly efficiently, at least in an exciting way. However – and I know this is probably niggling – there was still no explanation forthcoming as to why 22nd century Earth needs all this acid, or how one can mine for it in any case. I realise that scientific accuracy isn’t traditionally a strong point in Doctor Who, and you could say that the business of acid mining is merely a McGuffin to give the base under siege a purpose. But as the acid’s destruction of the base was one of the primary sources of peril in this concluding part, I could have done with, at least, a couple of throwaway lines of exposition, preferably as establishment in the first part. It might have made more sense to set the story on an alien planet which could have vast deposits of subterranean acid. Indeed, I wondered whether this had been the original intention, and the shift to Earth and the admittedly atmospheric monastery setting had been dictated by budgetary considerations.

As the TARDIS deposited a motley crew of Gangers and humans at the headquarters of Weyland-Yutani like corporation Morpeth-Jetsan for an inquiry that had somehow already been convened, the point was rammed home well enough about the dangers of playing Frankenstein, and the consequences of artificially creating life. But even with the theme having been quite nicely explored, there was a lack of internal logic here. The Doctor had implied that these particular Gangers had gained individual sentience as a result of the solar storm, leading to the obvious conclusion that this was an exceptional circumstance, and that the Flesh in general didn’t have these characteristics. Yet he was urging them, as they went into the meeting, to make the case for the rights of Gangers. Also, the Ganger castoffs, still alive, implied that all Gangers had this potential. Which, if you think about it, makes his decision to destroy the now-revealed Ganger Amy a bit damn callous!

But oh, what a scene! That was marvellously played by all concerned. Karen Gillan’s faltering, uncertain, “I’m scared Doctor” was truly heartfelt, as was Rory’s initial protectiveness. That he ultimately, reluctantly, stepped away was a testament to how genuinely scary Matt Smith made the Doctor – once again, we saw that underneath the playfulness, this is really a 900 year old alien of immense power.

So, major arc developments. The Doctor has known for some time that this wasn’t the real Amy – that was his real purpose behind investigating the Flesh. Indeed, it hasn’t been the real Amy “for a long time”. How long exactly? I was thinking maybe she was replaced when captured by the Silence in Day of the Moon, but Steven Moffat has strongly implied that it happened even before the series began. And she really is pregnant – but with whose baby? And will it be the mysterious, regenerating little girl from the opening two parter? At least we now know that eyepatch lady is real, some kind of sentinel over the recumbent, real Amy, whose tenuous link to her Ganger led to the ‘Schrodinger’s baby’ uncertainty on the TARDIS medical scanner.

Rory didn’t die this week, but yet again, there was a reference to the 2000 years he spent as the Watchful Centurion, as the Doctor playfully called him “Roranicus Pondicus. As this has been harped on about several times since the season opener, and as Rory seems next week to be dressed in Roman garb, this is obviously significant. But who knows how? And the Doctor now knows about his oncoming demise, courtesy of Amy finding him indistinguishable from his Ganger self – something which didn’t hold true for hers! He hasn’t commented on it yet, but with next week’s episode bringing the season to a midpoint cliffhanger, I’m expecting this to play a major part.

So, we got an exciting and thoughtful conclusion to a very trad Doctor Who story, which suffered from a lack of originality, a lack of internal logic and some predictable plotting. Nevertheless, I do think that part two had more to recommend it than part one, and I never thought it was actively bad – just a little overfamiliar. Those who spend less time analysing the tropes of Doctor Who and science fiction in general may not have had that problem, and I know a lot of people who found this the most enjoyable story of the season so far. It’s just that I’m not one of them!

But those final scenes lifted it out of routine, and while linked to the main story, were almost an episode in their own right. Given the big advancement of the story arc, I wondered whether those particular scenes had actually been written by Steve Moffat himself – but Matthew Graham is capable of some very good writing even if he did give an unwilling world Bonekickers. It was a heart in mouth cliffhanger – and while I’m already finding it hard to wait for next week, I know the wait of several months after that may be even harder!

Series 6, Episode 5: The Rebel Flesh

“You gave them your lives. Human lives are amazing. Are you surprised they walked off with them?”

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OK – a slightly less “rapturous” review this week. (Note to future self – there was a big deal about a Californian televangelist nutter predicting the Rapture on Saturday – it didn’t happen, hence still being here to write this). Maybe I was still reeling from how much I loved last week’s episode, maybe it’s because I was stuck watching it on a tiny 4:3 TV in a dull hotel for work, maybe it’s because writer Matthew Graham’s last Who story, Fear Her, was less than impressive. But I didn’t find this as great as I know a lot of other fans did.

Not that it was in any way bad, mind – in fact, this was waaay better than the aforementioned Fear Her, in which the awestruck voice of Huw Edwards caused stomachs to turn with his depiction of the Olympic flame – “it’s a flame of hope now, of love…” And with his other writer’s hat on, Matthew Graham seriously impressed me with his cop/time travel crossovers, Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes. The Rebel Flesh wasn’t as good as those, but it was miles ahead of Fear Her. And yet, it left me curiously unmoved.

In the spirit of positivity caused by the apocalypse fail, let’s start with what was good. To begin with, this was very much a trad Who story in the mould of the Troughton ‘base under siege’ staples – an isolated scientific installation where things go wrong, help is not forthcoming, and the Doctor and co can’t just leave. Actually, that latter point has been an impressive factor in recent episodes. Like the 60s stories, you can’t just yell at the screen, “get in the TARDIS and leave then!”, because the TARDIS has been removed/destroyed/possessed, or in this case, buried in an acid-corroded hole.

Unfortunately, that does bring me to the first of my negative points. This is indeed an impressively realised future installation, a 13th century monastery used to mine acid. But I don’t recall there being any explanation of why 22nd century Earth would particularly want acid. It’s plainly important, hence the urgency over getting the operation up and running again, but why? Either an important bit of exposition was buried under Murray Gold’s music, or some useful lines from an earlier draft were deleted and not replaced. For that matter, how can you mine acid? I know I’m no scientist, so I may be talking through my hat here, but my hazy memories of O level science don’t include vast untapped pools of subterranean corrosives.  For a start, wouldn’t they end up corroding their way to the depths of the planet before losing their potency? And while I’m on the subject, what the heck is a “solar tsunami”?

Still, nobody’s ever accused Doctor Who of being scientifically accurate. However much that niggled at me, it did make for an impressively dangerous scenario, and an island surrounded by acid instantly called to mind 1964 story The Keys of Marinus. Which made me realise I was thinking too much.

But some thought was definitely required. The central thrust of the plot is not a new idea – we’ve created artificial life, and we’re using it to do the dirty jobs, and it may, or may not, be conscious of its own existence/purpose/duplication. These themes are familiar from Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Blade Runner and any number of Philip K Dick and Harlan Ellison stories. But familiarity doesn’t dull their potency – these are big philosophical concepts, and exactly the sort of thing science fiction is good at dealing with.

And to give Graham his due, the script is dealing with them well. The artificial Flesh, and the (doppel)Gangers are a well-realised concept, given some interesting dialogue about the nature of identity when they separate from their human progenitors. A good cast helps – it was nice to see Marshall Lancaster from Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes, again giving his patented Manchester everybloke (though why were the acid mine’s crew all Northern? Just so the Doctor could get that rather forced “Ee by gum” gag?). And I’m always glad to see Raquel Cassidy, who I’ve liked since her stint in Teachers, and it was amusing to think that she was being reunited with her Parliamentary researcher from Party Animals – one Matt Smith. But this time, he was in charge!

So, a good concept, a good cast, and some interesting philosophical dialogue – always a Doctor Who strength. Why, then, wasn’t it more engaging for me?

Mainly, I think, it was the plotting. Given the concept, there were no surprises here. It was obvious that the Flesh would become an independent life form. It was obvious that we’d be wondering which version of the characters was real (“Kill us both, Spock!”). And it was obvious, as in similar stories where the ‘monsters’ are just misunderstood (I’m looking at you, every Silurian story), that one of the human characters would, through fear and ignorance, instigate an avoidable conflict.

Some strong direction almost avoided the predictability – this was done very tensely, and even when a plot point was obvious, as with Jennifer’s toilet transformation, it was handled well. Julian Simpson pulled a lot of tricks out of the bag, despite an apparently meagre budget, to make this very suspenseful; the split screen work was impressive, and the Gangers’ make up interestingly scary for the tots. But ultimately, the predictability of the plotting was never going to be something you could hide. That said, it addressed the same plot miles better than Chris Chibnall’s disappointing Silurian two parter last year.

The regulars were as good as ever though. I’m really loving the dynamic of the three person TARDIS team this year, it’s so refreshing after RTD’s determined ‘one Doctor, one companion who fancies him’ staple. There’s obviously something being set up with Amy and Rory; the emphasis on their nice, loving relationship in previous episodes seems to be setting them up for a fall. And we may be seeing the genesis of that here, as Rory gets to play the hero searching for Jennifer – someone he seems to have fallen for in both human and Ganger form. It’s nice to see Amy looking discomfited that, for once, she’s not the dominant one in the relationship; and Karen Gillan has played that rather well.

Arc watch – apart from establishing that our heroes like Muse (Supermassive Black Hole is one of my favourites too), the Doctor is still puzzling over Schrodinger’s baby, and Eyepatch Lady makes another brief appearance. The Ganger Doctor could, of course, be the one we saw killed in the first episode – but that’s far, far too obvious, I think. Some have theorised that the frequent deaths of Rory (none this week, amazingly) are the Universe’s way of compensating for the fact that he should be dead, and Amy brought him back. So if he’s the father, his position in space/time is far from secure, hence the ‘positive/negative’ pregnancy indecision. Incidentally, that medical scanner in the console seems a little convenient – it could have come in useful in any number of disease oriented stories, notably The Invisible Enemy. Perhaps the Doctor didn’t want to reveal that he’d been peeking inside his companions’ bodies…

So, some interesting ideas but, for me, a formulaic and predictable plot. Far from a bad episode though, and as the first of a two-parter, much hinges on the conclusion. What are these mysterious hints the Doctor has been dropping regarding his knowledge of the Flesh as “primitive technology”? And will we find out more about the implications an intelligent, self-aware slave race could have for this future society? Next week’s conclusion could raise this from being an interesting idea with dull execution into something rather more. Here’s hoping…

Series 6, Episode 4: The Doctor’s Wife

I wanted to see the universe, so I stole a Time Lord and ran away. You were the only one mad enough.”

The-Doctors-Wife

Wow. My brain is still reeling! Where to start, where to start? With Neil Gaiman of course! Neil Gaiman wrote this episode! Wait… I’ll write that again, but bigger. NEIL GAIMAN WROTE THIS EPISODE!!!

As you may have guessed, I’m a bit of a fan. Forget your Richard Curtis and your Simon Nye (much as I loved their episodes), this was written by the guy who created Sandman. And Neverwhere. And American Gods. Fan or not, it’s fair to say that I was worried Neil wouldn’t live up to my high expectations. But I needn’t have been. This was every bit as special, as lyrical, as weird, inventive and beautiful as I could have hoped for – and more besides.

The title was either pretty clever or a sneaky bit of misdirection, depending on your point of view. The Doctor’s Wife was first floated around as a possible episode title by John Nathan-Turner in the 80s, hoping to bait easily riled and humourless fans who thought the very idea of their hero having a romantic relationship would mean the end of the universe. And I think similar fans may have had similar reactions on hearing the title this time around. But this was far more interesting than the Doctor getting married, or even having some kind of daughter. I don’t know if you could call the relationship the episode centred on a romantic one (though I wouldn’t rule it out), but it’s the longest standing relationship in the history of the show – the Doctor and the TARDIS.

It’s a brilliant concept, particularly for those of us who talk to our cars. Imagine if the car suddenly talked back! Sentient TARDISes have been done before in the BBC books (though I don’t know if Neil will have read them), but this wasn’t some Johnny come lately of a timeship like Compassion. This was the original, the one and now the only TARDIS. All those little hints the show has dropped about the ship’s sentience and telepathic abilities were crystallised by having her ‘matrix’ installed in a living, breathing woman.

Suranne Jones gave a marvellously batty performance as Idris/TARDIS, though the look she’d been given made it difficult not to think of Helena Bonham-Carter in some of her madder roles. Not being a Coronation Street fan, this is the first time I’ve ever seen Suranne Jones, but I have to say I was impressed. After all, it’s a pretty weird role to get your head around… “What’s my motivation?” “Well, you’re a shapeshifting box who travels in time and space.”

It helped that she had excellent chemistry with Matt Smith, enlivened by some brilliantly witty and lyrical dialogue. “Do you have a name?” “700 years, finally he asks.” Anthropomorphising the one the Doctor has always loved above all others gave them a chance to have an almost flirtatious relationship, with him calling her ‘sexy’ while she remarked on the hilarity of his chin. Matt was at his most exuberant, running around like an excited little boy half the time, but still carrying the gravitas to convey his guilt at having wiped out his own race.

But central concept aside, there had to be a plot – which my friend Kim has already described as ‘The Edge of Destruction on acid’. The plot was as typically weird as one might expect from a writer whose plot for Stardust is actually accurately summarised by the lyrics of Take That’s Rule the World. So a sentient asteroid that eats TARDISes has been luring Time Lords outside the universe to kill them for their craft, while maintaining a ‘family’ constantly rebuilt patchwork people put together like the Morbius creature. And finding that the Doctor’s TARDIS is the last one, said TARDISophage is desperate to get back into the universe to find more tasty timeships.

It’s a much more fantastical idea than recent Doctor Who has ever done, though still less weird than things like The Mind Robber from 1968. As a result, I think some fans might find Neil Gaiman’s lyrical fantasy style not what they were expecting from Who – though if so, his episode of Babylon 5 could have given them a clue as to what to expect. I must say, I was a bit worried at first by the visuals I saw in the trailer – it looked like identikit Tim Burton/Terry Gilliam/David Lynch stuff, and I was concerned that we might be getting a blend of two styles that didn’t quite mesh. But in context, it worked perfectly. The ‘TARDIS junkyard’ planetoid and its patchwork inhabitants were very much of the style that could have crept out from Coraline or Stardust, which for me is no bad thing.

It was a shame that we had to get rid of the witty but crumbling Auntie and Uncle so quickly, but there were so many ideas packed into this episode that there wasn’t really time to explore many of them in depth – if there was a flaw at all, that was it. It was nice to see some menace restored to the Ood in the persona of Nephew, with his eyes that green colour representative of House. And the possessed TARDIS, green light glowing from its windows, brought an element of chills back to the ship and its multitudinous and infinite corridors.

The visualisation (finally!) of the TARDIS interior being more than just the console room was just one of many continuity references in the script, too. Apparently Time Lords can officially regenerate into other genders – the Doctor’s old friend Corsair had been men and women. The room delete function has a failsafe to ensure no occupants are deleted with the rooms – makes you wonder what Nyssa was so worried about in Castrovalva when deleting rooms randomly. And Time Lord distress messages are (were) still sent in little telepathic cubes as seen in The War Games!

Rory and Amy continued to be a strong double act as House menaced them in the possessed TARDIS – great voice for House by Michael Sheen, incidentally. Though the old, bearded Rory did look unavoidably reminiscent of Monty Python’s “It’s…” guy, and Rory looking like he was dead again was fooling no-one. Nice that the TARDIS thinks of him (to the Doctor’s incredulity) as “the pretty one”!

In the end, though, House was perhaps too easily vanquished by the TARDIS as she was set free from her corporeal prison, but that final scene between her and the Doctor was absolutely heartbreaking, knowing that he will never speak to her like that ever again. Convincing tears on the part of everyone in the scene – and a few from me at home too.

There were almost no references to the big story arc this week, beyond a short exchange between Amy and Rory, which meant no mysterious, eyepatch-clad Frances Barber gazing through a hatch in reality. But the TARDIS’ final words to Rory must be a big clue – “The only water in the forest is River”. No idea what that actually could mean, but I’m sure all will become clear…

In the end, this episode was, for me, very special indeed. I don’t love Neil Gaiman’s work uncritically, but I thought this was a marvellous blend of his trademark style with Doctor Who. And I’ve never heard the series better summed up than in Amy’s remark in the final scene – “A boy and his box, off to see the universe”. And that’s the magic of Doctor Who. Thanks, Neil.

Series 6, Episode 3: Curse of the Black Spot

“Yo ho ho! … Or does nobody actually say that?”

Aarrgh!

Sometimes, my brain hurts from trying to analyse the complexity of Steven Moffat’s Chinese puzzle plots. So after all the twisty turny plot arc stuff of the last two episodes, it was almost a relief to get back to a straightforward, standalone adventure. And with pirates! I love pirates, although I know from some friends’ reactions to the Pirates of the Caribbean movies that this isn’t a universal feeling. Still, with a fourth Jack Sparrow adventure due to be released in a fortnight or so, this episode was nothing if not timely.

At any rate, Doctor Who has done pirates before, but not since 1966’s The Smugglers. In some ways, that was a more trad take on the whole Robert Louis Stevenson staple, with “Aaarr!” accents and all. This was actually rather lighter on Errol Flynn heroics than I might have expected, though Amy at least got to brandish a cutlass and swing across the deck by a handy bit of rigging. Amusingly, she also found time to put on the requisite frock coat and tricorn hat before rushing to her men’s rescue – the situation was clearly not so urgent to prevent her “dressing for the occasion”.

This was fairly lightweight stuff, though by no means unenjoyable. Hugh Bonneville impressed as Captain Avery, making the most of a role that was formed more from a brief character sketch than anything else: former naval officer, likes gold, turned pirate unbeknownst to his family. To be honest, he was really the only guest character with any sort of personality, as the rest of the crew were simply stock pirates, few of them even graced with such luxuries as names. But fair’s fair, this was a 45 minute adventure story, and the kind of character development given to the lowly bilgerats on Jack Sparrow’s ship needs a bit more time than that.

Nonetheless, the crew gave their all with what little they had to work with, responding to the demands of the plot more than anything else. So we had the cowardly one, the loyal one, the treacherous one etc, all familiar archetypes from pirate tales of yore. Particularly notable was Lee Ross as the ship’s boatswain (he wasn’t given a name either) – I always liked Ross as Kenny in Moffat’s Press Gang, and he doesn’t pop up enough on telly. The last thing I seem to recall him doing was a nifty turn as Gene Hunt’s nemesis in Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes.

It was nice to see the Doctor guessing at what was going on, and consistently being wrong – “Ignore all my previous theories!” – somewhat in the style of Dr Gregory House with his several incorrect diagnoses before reaching the right one. There’s been rather too much of the Doctor being omniscient since the series returned, and I like to be reminded that he’s fallible – though preferably not by committing genocide as he did last week. Matt Smith gave his customary well-studied performance, playing with a lighter script than we had last week which gave him some great lines (though I’m not sure “Urgh, alien bogeys!” is going to go down as one of the show’s classic quotes).

Karen Gillan got some meaty stuff too, with the aforementioned swashbuckling nicely handed to the girl rather than either of the men. She also got some really touching moments with Rory, which continue to really solidify their relationship – it’s hard to see the situation in the TARDIS as so much of a love triangle this year. Arthur Darvill too was marvellous, though he did spend most of the episode being utilised basically as comic relief. Still, I can’t say I was entirely displeased to see him shirtless, even if this did involve him dying yet again! While the recreation of the bit from The Abyss where Ed Harris brings back Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio was a nice scene, given Rory’s many previous deaths I never believed for a second that he was gone for good this time. As my friend Richard commented on his recent blog post, Mr Moffat’s trend of killing off major characters only for timey wimey wizardry to bring them back has rather cheapened the idea of death in Doctor Who.

A relief it was then, that the scary ‘siren’ wasn’t actually killing people after all – though I twigged that after she got the little boy, finding it unlikely that this show would kill off a child quite so freely. She was, basically, an alien version of Voyager’s Emergency Medical Hologram, shaped (presumably from the sailors’ minds) into an object from a classic sailor’s ghost story. The idea that she could appear from any reflective surface was a nice gimmick, though backed up with the kind of technobabble that would make a Star Trek writer blush. At least the Doctor had the disclaimer, “It’s not really like that at all”.

And the spaceship coexisting in the same time and space as the pirates’ vessel is a nice sci fi idea, but as old as the hills. Doctor Who itself has done it several times, notably with the Megara ship in The Stones of Blood and the two ships stuck through each other in Nightmare of Eden.

Ultimately though, this wasn’t an episode about big sci fi concepts – it was meant to be a rollicking adventure with pirates. On that level it largely succeeded, though I could have done with seeing some actual piracy, or at least the ship soaring along in the daylight. Those are quibbles really though – Curse of the Black Spot succeeded perfectly well on its own terms. It looked good, filmed on an actual sailing ship, had some fun moments, good dialogue, and fun if improbable resolution that the ship’s crew will now become… wait for it… The Space Pirates!

Next week – Ood! With green eyes!