Who is the Greatest Who

While you patiently wait for me to find time to pen words about the climax to the recent Who season - it's getting there! - have a look at www.uktvdrama.co.uk Where you can vote for your favourite TV Doctor. There's also a Doctor Who weekend on the 14/15 July with several great stories being shown on the UKTV Drama channel. Check it out David

The Time Factor

Profuse apologies for a lack of review for last week's Doctor Who episode ... basically the weekend was taken up with collecting son from Uni, and then tidying the house. Evenings this week are mental, and next weekend is also completely occupied with stuff. So the chances are that The Sound of Drums and Last of the Time Lords won't be reviewed for a couple of weeks yet ... Sorry about that but sometimes the real world intrudes ...

Doctor Who - Utopia

I feel so torn by Utopia. On the one hand, I really enjoyed it. It's exciting and gripping and rattles along at a great pace. It hit all the fannish buttons in me: the Master returning, but also the tremendous pace and the ending. But it also has little or no plot, and, in common with many of the episodes written by Russell T Davies, seems to exist solely to acheieve an objective: in this case to introduce the Master to a new audience. But I'm not sure it even does that very well.

The opening had a very much 'been there done that' feel. Cardiff again, and the TARDIS needs to re-fuel. Again. And Captain Jack. Again. I'm not sure how he knew where the TARDIS would be though. Perhaps he has bionic hearing like Jackie and Mickey have at the start of The Christmas Invasion. He races for the ship, and in a moment which must have had evil bus drivers the world over clapping with joy, although the Doctor sees him on the monitor, he takes off anyway. Leaving poor Jack clinging to the side of the TARDIS as it headed through the Vortex. Hmmm. Not sure about that. Visually great, but not really explained and not in keeping with what we've heard about the Vortex before.

Anyway ... Jack's presence sends the TARDIS hurtling into the distant distant future. Again. But this time they arrive on the planet Malcassero - a deserted and decidedly quarry-like place. I half expected to see a bunch of extras from Blake's 7 there. Malnourished and tribal, dressed in the remnants of their costumes and managing to somehow survive ... hang on ... there they are! And they're chasing a human.

Said human is naturally rescued by the Doctor, Jack and Martha and they all race to somewhere called the Silo. There they gain entry and the ragged outsiders, with their pointy teeth clashing, are locked out. But what is young laddo doing running about out there anyway? Everyone else is in the Silo, patiently waiting to board the rocket to take them to Utopia, the promised land. It seems that the pointy toothed ones eat humans ... well they must be pretty starving then as there's not much evidence of them out there!

In the Silo is Professor Yana and his assistant, the insect Malmouth, called Chantho. The Professor is trying to get the rocket working but is failing to do so. So the Doctor helps and before you can say 'reverse the polarity' he has buzzed with his sonic screwdriver and it's all fixed. But first, five lever things have to be set in a room full of deadly radiation. I get it. This place was designed by the same committee who did Platform 5 and that spacecraft from 42. It's the only explanation as to why the radiation can't be turned off, or even why the switches are in a lethal zone anyway.

Handy Jack gets it sorted though - there are advantages to being immortal - but meanwhile Martha discovers that the Professor has a fob watch the same as the one the Doctor stored his Time Lord self in a couple of episodes earlier. This was a lovely touch. Very unexpected. Of course it points towards the Professor being a Time Lord ... perhaps even the Doctor!

But it's obvious something is up. The voice the Professor hears is evil and old ... and I cheered out loud when I heard a clip from The Daemons in there of Roger Delgado's distinctive voice ... we know what's coming.

The Professor opens the watch and becomes his Time Lord persona ... that of the Master! I liked the idea of the Professor's name relating to the Face of Boe's message 'You Are Not Alone'. Y. A. N. A. Very clever.

Now, all avid fans know who the Master is. We know the history and everything. But new viewers don't. He's just a bad guy. Another Time Lord admittedly, but that's about all we know. Put it like this, if it wasn't the Master, and was someone called Askwith, would it have made any difference. Nope. Hopefully we will get more of a sense of the Master and why he is special in the next couple of weeks. I just hope it doesn't involve him unexpectedly growing a goatee beard and chuckling a lot. Oh, and wearing black leather gloves.

While all this has been going on, the Doctor and Jack have allowed the rocket to take off, and race back to the Professor's lab. The Master has opened all the external gates allowing the great unwashed to enter, and so the final moments of the episode are a chaos of running, snarling, exciting music (some of which seemed to be pinched from the soundtrack to one of my favourite horror films, Phantasm) and shouting.

The Master electrocutes Chantho (Chan. Well, her stupid language was starting to get on my wick as well. Tho.) and she in turn shoots him. The Doctor recognises his old adversary, but the Master gets into the TARDIS and locks the door against the Doctor. He then regenerates into the form of John Simm. Very nicely done, but I wish it hadn't looked the same as the Doctor's regeneration ... I guess the production team was providing a reference point for the viewers though.

Simm seems far more like Tennant's Doctor, and is manic, energetic and rushing. He promptly leaves in the TARDIS after a last gloat at the Doctor over the speakers (and Martha recognises his voice) and we leave the episode with the Doctor TARDIS-less, and Jack and Martha trying to keep the tribe of Blake's 7 extras from getting through the door.

Breathless stuff.

On the utterly awesome front was Derek Jacobi. What a brilliant performance. Full of pathos and love as the Professor, and then cold and hard when the Master took over. I did sense the scenery being chewed a little in these scenes, but that's forgivable I feel. John Simm? Not enough to really tell. The only question of course being whether he is in a coma, dreaming, or really in the far future (sorry ... you have to have watched Life on Mars to get that).

On the 'a bit rubbish' side, the plot - there wasn't one. The whole Utopia thing and the savages - or futurekind - outside and the running about and snarling. Maybe Utopia is significant later on in the season - the Master did take the disk from the machine which was showing its location. Captain Jack was a bit of a wet fish, though I did like the Doctor's 'stop it!' every time Jack said hello to anyone (though quite how a blue insect girl would be attracted to a human is hard to fathom).

Overall then, a true example of style over substance. From the sublime and superbly plotted and acted adventure of Human Nature, The Family of Blood and Blink, we regress to a plotless runaround which is just crammed with great bits. Rather like an unthemed buffet meal consisting of everything you enjoy, but with no structure or menu to make palatable sense of it. I really enjoyed it, but feel that in time it won't stand up to repeated viewing.

Next week looks like some sort of party political broadcast as Mr Saxon takes centre stage ... Listen for those drums though.

Doctor Who - Blink

Blooming blinking brilliant! That was the verdict on this latest episode of Who. An absolutely cracking story, simple and yet really effective in all the right ways. Steven Moffat pulled out all the stops to present something scary and creepy, and the direction and acting combined to make it totally rivetting from beginning to end.

The opening is awesome. Sally Sparrow is exploring an old house called Wester Drumlins and sees a message written on the wall, behind the wallpaper, telling her to beware the weeping angel, and to duck! A rock thrown through the window narrowly misses her ... and she sees that the message is from the Doctor.

Aside from idly wondering who threw the rock! When the Angels are not creeping up on people at the speed of light, do they bung stones at people for a laugh? It's only in retrospect that this makes little sense. As does the idea of the Doctor knowing where to write his message, knowing that it will be seen by Sally at that moment ... it's all a little contrived. But it doesn't really matter as the episode is just so good.

Sally is intrigued and so gets her flatmate Kathy Nightingale to come with her back to the house. The Angels approach and Kathy abruptly finds herself transported from London 2007, to Hull 1920! What a brilliant concept: aliens who kill you simply by sending you back in time to die naturally! It's all so well handled too. Kathy's grandson delivering the letter from Kathy to Sally at the same time as Kathy vanishes. Sally goes looking for Kathy but just finds one of the stone statue Angels with a yale key in its hand, which she takes.

I loved with a passion the way the statue changed position behind her. The editing and direction of this episode is awesome, with tension ratchetting all the time, and the Angels a very sinister and creepy presence.

Sally now goes to see Kathy's brother, Larry, who works in a DVD store, and we find that the Doctor is an 'Easter Egg' extra on 17 different and apparently unrelated DVDs. He is apparently holding one side of a conversation, but the other side is unknown so it all seems a little meaningless. More clever ideas from Moffat here, and the idea of the Doctor being a hidden DVD extra is again fun and fitting.

Sally goes to the Police, and meets Billy, a young black copper who takes a shine to her and asks for her number. However the Police have a car park full of cars abandoned outside the old house ... and the TARDIS is there also. When Sally has gone, however, the Angels approach the box, and Billy is transported back to 1969 where he meets the Doctor and Martha. They get him to take a message to Sally in 2007 ... which he delivers to her on his death bed.

Sally asks Larry to bring the Doctor's message on the DVD to the old house where they play it, and Sally is able to have a conversation with the Doctor, which Larry records in a pad ... this is how the Doctor knows what to say, and what Sally is asking him ... my mind reels with all this, but it's just so neat and clever!

But then ... the Angels attack. The Doctor explains that they are quantum locked, which means that they can only move when unobserved. So you must not take your eyes off them or even blink as then they can get you. He tells Sally that she has to get the blue police box back to them, and she eventually finds it in the cellar, surrounded by the Angels. She and Larry hurry to use the key she has to get in, but the Angels make the light fail, and in the flashes of darkness, they close in.

Finalls, Sally and Larry get inside and are safe, but a hologram of the Doctor appears and asks them to place the DVD in the console to activate it. They do this, and the ship dematerialises from around them! They are surrounded by the Angels ... but are safe as the creatures are all now looking at each other and so will remain stone forever.

I loved the simplicity and cleverness of this solution. However I'm sure that someone will move the statues eventually and they will be able to escape somehow ...

Now we flash forward a year, and Sally has been unable to get over the events. She has all the information, transcript, photographs in a folder ... and suddenly she sees the Doctor and Martha outside the DVD shop which she now owns with Larry - they are just friends.

She talks to the Doctor, but in a genius stroke, the adventure has not happened to him yet. She gives him the file of information and he and Martha rush off to whatever adventure they are having ... This is lovely ... really lovely. But do you know what I would have loved. I would have adored there to have been a scene in, maybe The Lazarus Experiment, where, from Martha's point of view, we saw the Doctor talking to Sally, and not know what it was all about ...

The problem for me is that, as with Love & Monsters, we catch a glimpse of an adventure which is not 'real' in as much as we've not seen it on TV. Of course the business with arrows and reptiles might be in a future story, but I severely doubt whether we'll see the 10th Doctor and Rose battling the Hoix anytime soon ... It would just have been nice to have seen the exchange beforehand in an earlier story, and to have, at that point, been in exactly the same position as the Doctor and Martha and not know what on earth it was all about. A small missed opportunity I feel.

And then we end with a final collage of statues ... loads and loads of statues. Imlying that any and all of them could be Weeping Angels, and that they could come and get you if you so much as blink!

I'm sure several kids went to bed eyeing any statues around carefully that night. Blink was a brilliant slice of Saturday evening entertainment and did everything that Doctor Who does at its very best. Even the fact that the Doctor's not in it very much didn't seem to matter. Carey Mulligan, playing Sally, was brilliant, bringing warmth and humanity to the part. Her reactions were spot on, from the terror, to the confusion, to the loss of her friend, to the embarrasment at Billy's flirting with her. Larry was also well played, and even Kathy and Billy were excellent. Especial kudos to Louis Mahoney playing the old Billy. He's come a long way from playing a newscaster in 1973's Frontier in Space, and Ponti in 1975's Planet of Evil.

In fact the only thing that really ruined the episode for me, was the BBC squishing the end credits into a box the size of a postage stamp, and allowing Graham Norton to shout about his show on next ... very, VERY annoying indeed. All BBC channels have apparently adopted this approach for most shows, and I really feel it is something of an abomination. If you feel strongly then maybe consider making your voice heard, and phone the BBC complaints line on 08700 100 222. I did, and who knows, maybe if enough people contact them to say that they like watching the end credits, and being able to read them, and that it spoils the mood of drama programs to have this happen at the end, and that the people involved in making the shows deserve for their names to be seen and to be readable on screen ...

Anyway ... next week we have the end of the Universe (again), Derek Jacobi, Captain Jack, and some pointy-toothed individuals in what looks like it could be a remake of The Savages ... time will tell.

Doctor Who - The Family of Blood

The two part stories have, in these new series of Doctor Who, often been the most disappointing. Adventures like Aliens of London/World War III, The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit and Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways have featured one brilliant episode, and one which was less than brilliant. However we have also had gems like Rise of the Cyberman/Age of Steel and Army of Ghosts/Doomsday where the production team seemed to get it right. And now with Human Nature/The Family of Blood, they get it so right that it seems impossible to ever top it.

As readers will know, I loved the first episode, Human Nature, and now with The Family of Blood, it all seemed to come together and gel into something cinematic in scope and which touched your heart and mind as you watched, making the audience think about what had happened as well as enjoying the scope and spectacle of it all.

We open as we left last week, with the Family threatening the lives of Martha and Joan unless the Doctor changes himself back into a Time Lord. Well Martha well and truly takes the upper hand, gaining control of a gun and getting everyone out of the church hall alive. I loved her off-hand comment to John Smith: 'God, you're rubbish as a human!' Very fitting given the circumstances. Everyone dashes back to the school where John Smith starts to rouse the boys and staff into a fighting force to see of the Family and their ambulatory scarecrows. Before the battle starts, however, the Headmaster and Phillips go out to talk to the attackers. These are great scenes, with the sounds of battle over Baines' foretelling of the War to come. But Phillips is disintegrated by the Family and the Head rushes back as battle commences.

Baines calls for more Soldiers and loads more Scarecrows arrive - all identical. How many do they have in the fields around this village? I counted at least 30 in shot, with more arriving all the time.

We have lots of great character interplay, all switched together here. The boys preparing for the fight with guns, June and John Smith trying to come to terms with what's happening and Martha trying to find the watch to restore the Doctor.

The Family start their attack and the initial phlanx of scarecrows are cut down with bullets as the school hymn plays. I felt this was a moment too far. For a start, why did the bullets affect the scarecrows at all, and the mood of the battle was, I felt, trying too hard to elicit a Blackadder the Fourth moment of poignancy which didn't work as the 'dead' were only scarecrows anyway. But the lead up, with the boys crying with fear, was brilliantly handled, and brought to mind similar moments in the middle Lord of the Rings film, The Two Towers.

It all ends when the little girl appears and disintegrates the Headmaster. Panic ensues and everyone runs again.

The Family now know they just need to get the pocket watch, and they also have the Doctor's TARDIS brought to the school to tempt the Doctor out. However the Doctor is nowhere to be seen and John Smith starts to crack under the strain. He just wants to be John Smith. This is a bravura performance from David Tennant. Absolutely believable and brilliant. Tennant is so watchable as an actor ... pure genius.

Smith, Martha and Joan head off to the Cartwright's cottage (little Lucy Cartwright is the small girl possessed by the Family) where they finally meet up with Tim who passes the watch across. These scenes feature the most poetic description of the Doctor ... 'He is like fire and ice and rage. He's like the night and the storm in the heart of the sun. He's ancient and forever. He burns at the centre of time and can see the turn of the Universe. And he's wonderful.'

This is said by Tim to John Smith as he agonises over whether to open the watch or not. Whether to return to being the Doctor or not. These are great scenes, perhaps a little long played, but necessarily so. John Smith must die if the Doctor is to live, and Smith does not want to die. He sees a flash forward of his human life as it might be ... of marriage and children ... happiness ... and then his death. And the make-up on Tennant for his old, dying frame is awesome. These are tear jerking, emotional moments, but also classic Doctor Who, making you care for the people and what's happening ... what decision would you ... could you ... make yourself?

And so it's endgame, and the most brilliant twist by writer Paul Cornell ... the Doctor was not hiding to protect himself and Martha, but to save the Family ... for when he returns (and of course we knew he would) he exacts his wrath on these alien beings in a way which is callous and cold - he gives them exactly what they wanted. This echoes the temptation posed by Rassilon in The Five Doctors, that those who wish immortality would be granted it ... at a price. But the Doctor's price is immense.

I loved the way the narrative suddenly shifted to Baines talking us through the fates of the Family members. Showing the Doctor as an implacable alien being, doing what he has to do. But cruel too, as if he had just waited, then the Family would have all died anyway. With his involvement they live forever in their own private hells.

After this, there's a sequence of endings to rival that of The Lord of the Rings. One at a time the plots and characters are wrapped up: Joan no longer wants the Doctor - her John Smith was the braver as he died to save everyone: the Doctor just had to change. Latimer sees the Doctor and Martha leave in the TARDIS, saves the older bully, Hutchinson, from a shell during the War the following year, and lives to an old age. The final scenes around the War memorial, the elderly Latimer holding his lucky watch and remembering, as the Doctor and Martha look on from a distance is awesome television. It's almost impossible not to be moved by it.


'They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.'
From 'For the Fallen' by Laurence Binyon

Doctor Who - Human Nature

What a difference a week makes. From the generic SF of 42, to something intelligent and thoughtful in Human Nature. This is why Doctor Who is the greatest show on television ... nothing else can present such differing episodes and still be the same programme!

Human Nature was written by Paul Cornell, and based on his Doctor Who novel of the same name. The novel comes highly recommended and often tops polls of peoples favourite Who novels, and so the pedigree is good for a cracking television yarn. And that's what we got!

We open with a bang ... something I'd often thought should happen but until now never did - starting a story at the tail end of an unseen one. I always liked the idea of that which is why we did it when Telos published the original Doctor Who novella Companion Piece a few years back ... but anyway ... something is after the Doctor and he has to try and escape. The details of what happen come a little later on: he uses something called a chameleon bridge to rewrite his biology and make him human. What is it with the current Doctor Who team and DNA? Barely a week goes by without something happening to mess with it. In Smith and Jones, the Judoon are detecting non-humans with DNA scanners, in The Shakespeare Code the Carrionites have DNA replicators, in Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks it's the Daleks playing with human and Dalek DNA, in The Lazarus Experiment it's all about DNA gone wrong and now we have more DNA messing about. So the Doctor is now a single-hearted human called John Smith who teaches history at a boy's public school in 1913. Martha is keeping an eye on him by posing as a servant and somehow the Doctor's personality is now held in a pocketwatch.

There are so many great things about this episode that it's hard to keep track of them all. The pacing is brilliant, introducing concepts perfectly, and managing to slowly crank up the tension all the while. The other schoolboys are a wonderful lot, with the spooky Baines and the brilliant Tim Latimer as the highlights (Thomas Sangster playing Latimer is simply awesome). The Doctor is falling for the school matron, the widower Joan Redfern, brilliantly played by Jessica Haynes, and although some of their scenes are perhaps a little mawkish for a Doctor Who audience (the kissing mainly), you had to see the Doctor (or rather John Smith) going through this to make him real to the audience. And David Tennant pulls another rabbit from the hat by managing to make Smith different from the Doctor. It's a stand out performance as usual from Tennant and he makes it all look so simple and elegant.

There are some beautiful scenes with the journal that Smith has been keeping. I felt these were wonderfully played and am I the only one who wants a 'Journal of Impossible Things' of my own?

But this is Doctor Who and any life of idyll bliss will soon be shattered. The nasty aliens arrive in their spacecraft and promptly start harvesting bodies to occupy through the services of a stack of animated scarecrows (I have assumed that the collective noun for a number of scarecrows is a stack ... sounds right anyway). I guess the aliens took the scarecrows as temporary bodies at first until they could get enough human flesh to work with. The hapless schoolboy Baines is one such body, a farmer called Clark is another, a small girl with trademark red balloon is a third, and fourth is Martha's fellow maidservant Jenny. The aliens call themselves 'the family' and are after the Time Lord for some unknown reason.

The effects throughout the story are awesome. The invisible Family spacecraft is magnificently eerie, I loved the green lights everywhere and the alien voices. In fact, the spooky scarecrows were perhaps the least successful element - I wondered why they all looked the same. Did they all come from the same farm perhaps? The direction of their first appearance was also a little sloppy and non-threatening. Something of a lost opportunity I thought. As was the whole elaborate sequence with the piano falling. A great idea, but the execution was clumsy, spoiled by never actually seeing the woman with the pram in the same shot as the piano until the very end, thus not bringing home the tragedy that Smith was averting.

The plot rolls forward and Latimer, who seems to be able to see people's futures (he witnesses the death of an older bully on the battlefields of the Second World War), takes the pocket watch with the Doctor's personality in and opens it, thus alerting the Family to the Doctor's presence (I guess they knew he was on Earth somewhere but couldn't trace him precisely enough). There were some wonderful scenes here, with short cameo flashbacks to a Dalek, Cyberman, Ood, Werewolf, Sycorax, Racnoss and Lazarus. I did with some concern find this resonant of the self-indulgence of the eighties where barely a season could go by without too many back-references and the show slowly vanishing up its own posterior. I sincerely hope this isn't an indicator of the future here.

Smith and Joan head off to a local evening dance, and Latimer follows, realising that something is up. No sooner have the couple enjoyed a waltz than the Family-inhabited humans and scarecrows burst in, and confront Smith - Martha had given the game away trying to get the Doctor to snap out of it - and demand that he turn back into a Time Lord or they will kill either Martha or Joan ... and Smith must decide.

A cracking ending to the episode, and a great cliff hanger. All the performances here are uniformly brilliant, with no-one in particular taking overall kudos as they are all so good. There is an elegant simplicity in the Family's ray guns, turning victims into little clouds of ash, and the idea of the Doctor's Time Lord persona being in a pocket watch is a cute idea and very well handled. I can see kids in the playgrounds pretending to find invisible spacecraft, and eyeing the school nurse strangely ... not to mention that new teacher.

There are so many subtle nuances to the story, in the way it unfolds and is paced that it is a joy to watch. I really enjoyed it, and on a second viewing I enjoyed it more. I really can't wait for the concluding episode next week, and I hope that it manages to maintain the high standards set by the opening half.

Doctor Who - 42

One of the great things about the new Doctor Who series is that if you miss an episode, you can always catch it later as they're being repeated all the time. I was, however, a little surprised to tune in to catch the new episode, only to find that they were showing a condensed edition of The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit instead ... but then I looked closer and realised that some of the cast were different and there weren't any Ood around, so reasoned that it had to be a different story. But even so ... isolated group of humans in danger of being sucked into a space event, a mysterious power taking over characters and making them speak catchphrases and making their eyes glow with light, the TARDIS cut off from the Doctor, the day saved by the Doctor's companion ... Add to this a dirty/grimy sub-Alien feel to it all, some rubbish science and loads of CGI and the whole feeling of the story was of something very familiar that we had seen before.

The sense of deja vu does not stop there though. Here's a question: which Doctor Who story features the Doctor picking up a distress call and arriving to find a group of characters trying to harness a power source. One of them becomes infected by a creature composed of that power and their eyes glow white as they start killing off the other crewmembers one by one. Meanwhile, in trying to escape, a spaceship is dragged back to its doom because some of the power source is still on board and it must be ejected to escape, and the Doctor's companion is nearly fired into space along the way ...

Answer at the end.

So, for 42, the problems are manifest from the start. There's an almost overwhelming sense of familiarity about it which is not good. Little things like the Doctor fixing Martha's phone so she can phone home (shades of The End of the World). Also the whole element of being too close to the sun is the same as in The End of the World.

So the Doctor finds that he's cut off from the TARDIS for no good reason - something to do with the heat in that area rising too high, but why not in the rest of the ship as well? The spaceship is falling into a sun, the engines have been sabotaged and the auxillery engines are at the other end of the ship, past 29 locked and password protected doors. Cue Martha and Riley on a mission to open the doors. Whoever set these random password questions is a nutter though. The only reason you'd want to open them is to get to the other engine room ... and yet it's the equivalent of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire to do so. Whatever year this is, how are they supposed to know who had the most pre-download Number Ones out of Elvis or the Beatles! It's lucky Martha has her phone, but who does she call? Her useless mother. If it was me, then my mum would be the last person I'd ask about a question like that (and not only because she doesn't have the Internet). Surely Martha has other far more net-savvy friends. And then there's the later question of what Riley's favourite colour is! They are all doomed I tell you.

So while Martha is off answering questions and opening doors, the Doctor and the others are faced with the possessed figure of Korwin - husband of McDonnell. Now don't get me started on the casting of the, frankly, useless Michelle Collins as McDonnell. The woman has no presence, no authority, was totally unbelievable, and was simply walked all over by the rest of the cast who were uniformly superb. In script terms, why does she call her husband 'Korwin' when we learn from the end credits that his first name is 'Hal' - and why are their second names different anyway? Sheesh. There is no discernable plot though, as Korwin works his way through the crew, killing two of them by blasting them to ash with his glowing eyes, and transferring his 'infection' to a third.

But the question is, why is this alien entity bothering? In less than half an hour all the crew will be killed when the ship crashes into the sun, so why bother possessing people and then getting them to kill the rest? Then there's the question of the escape pods ... they have escape pods ... so why is the crew still on board at all? And why are the escape pods apparently down this corridor of locked doors? That's handy in the event of a problem.

But then whoever designed this spaceship was a raving loony anyway. Who in their right mind puts buttons and levers on the outside of the fuselage which will return an escape pod launched in error? Never mind as to why the auxilliary engines are so hard to get to, and why the fuel could not be ejected from the main engine room. I was reminded of the scene in The End of the World (again) where the Doctor has to get past a row of spinning fans to pull a switch. The same design madness at work.

Then there's the question of the size of the ship. From outside it looks like it's large - maybe half a mile long? I guess Martha is therefore a marathon sprinter to get from one end to the other in about a minute. And we won't go into the totally variable lengths of time it takes other characters to get from one part of the ship to another.

So there's lots of running around, people being killed, the Doctor doing a heroic spacewalk to save Martha (despite the fact that there is no way that magnetism would be strong enough to reclaim the pod and return it when up against the gravitational pull of a sun), and finally McDonnell doing the honourable thing and putting us out of the misery of her abysmal acting by shooting herself and Korwin into space where they can hug and fall into the sun together (more shades of The Impossible Planet). But even more questions: in The End of the World, just the light of the Sun was enough to scorch the walls and vapourise anything it touched, but here, even though they are 10 minutes from impact and getting closer every second, the light does nothing. Even the Doctor is able to spacewalk without even breaking a sweat, and McDonnell's body should have been burnt to a crisp in a nanosecond the moment she opened the outer door. But then maybe this living sun isn't as hot as the Earth's Sun. Yeah. Right.

The Doctor realises that the sun is alive and is possessed by the creature. He is then able to tell Martha that they will be saved if they jettison the stolen fuel with the sun particles in ... well if that's all it took, then why did the sun creature go to all the trouble of meting out personal and nasty revenge on the crew? It's just going to let them all go is it? And lo and behold it does. Or when the fuel is dumped, the engines start working ... or something. It's all a little unclear.

Overall, 42 was a story with so much potential, all wasted in a runaround based on a familiar plot and a series of very familiar set pieces. It just makes no sense at all. Compounded with the first major casting mis-step of the ineffectual Collins in the lead role, 42 just doesn't work.

There are some kudos to pass out though. First to David Tennant who makes playing the Doctor seem just so effortless. His performance when possessed was nothing short of brilliant, he managed to set the right levels of tension and angst and was supremely watchable. Such a shame that the production team didn't play a double blinder on the viewers and actually have him regenerate into John Simm mid way through ... now that would have been magnificent ...

Other praise to the rest of the cast who were very convincing. Martha was just the right side of annoying, and the others were all believable and watchable (with the sole exception of you know who). Martha's mum was still pretty annoying though, and there's the undercurrent about her having her phone tapped by mysterious colleagues of Mr Saxon, who, for whatever reason seems to be after the Doctor. I know this is setting things up for later on, and thankfully it's less sledgehammer than the 'Torchwood' arc last year so I forgive it.

Oh, and the Doctor Who story I was describing above was actually Planet of Evil from way back in 1975 ...

Dig Deep

While we wait for Saturday and more new Who, I wanted to take a short sidestep into the real world for a moment. One of my best friends, Gwyn, suffers from a mild form of epilepsy, and she is trying to raise awareness of the condition through raising money for the Epilepsy Foundation, an American-based organisation dedicated to funding research into the condition in the ongoing hope that greater progress can be made towards understanding it, and eventually curing it. Have a look at her words on her page here: http://www.epilepsyfoundation.org/eCommunities/heroes/index.cfm?user_id=1231 The condition hit her out of the blue when she was 18, and is still with her today. It's something that is misunderstood by many people, and it's really not a nice illness to have to live with. So, if you feel moved to spare a few pounds (or dollars depending on where you are reading this), then please consider donating through the link on Gwyn's page on the Foundation website above. Thanks so much.

Job!!

Regular readers of my blog will recall that back at the start of March I posted my woes on not being able to find a job. Well I'm pleased to report that the situation has finally changed and I start my first contract with the Royal Bank of Scotland this coming Wednesday. Obviously I'm over the moon about this, and can't wait to get back into the thick of things. Thanks to everyone who offered words of sympathy, advice and help.

Doctor Who - The Lazarus Experiment

There's something about episode titles which seem to give the whole game away which sometimes make you wonder whether it's worth watching the thing or not. Here we have Professor Lazarus ... now what could he possibly be going to do? Die and come back to life again perhaps? It's a shame really, because this episode was really entertaining and one of the best so far. I suspect that Lazarus' name falls into that unique category of science fiction where all planets, alien races and names must define wholly the major characteristic of that planet/race/creature. So guess what the Planet Aridius is like? Arid perhaps? Give the man a peanut. And the inhabitants? Well they have to be Aridians don't they. And the Hungersaurs ... what might they be like? Hungry dinosaurs perhaps? Now ... a tricky one ... Doctor Phoenix ... now see if you can guess the plot of whatever episode of whichever science fiction series he appears in ...

Anyway, back to the plot, and The Lazarus Experiment was, as I said, a superb slice of Saturday evening entertainment. After the hole-riddled plot of the previous episode, something complete and watchable without saying 'Yes, but ...' after every scene.

We open with the Doctor returning Martha to Earth. Her reactions were spot on ... having enjoyed her trips with the Doctor she is in no mood to go back to mundanity, and the cheer when the TARDIS reappeared was immense. But what of the mysterious old Professor Lazarus and his wonderful machine?

The Doctor and Martha attend the evening's event, and it transpires that Martha's sister, Tish, is Lazarus' PR secretary and has organised the event. Now this does pose some questions. Given how close Martha and Tish are, it's strange that she never mentioned the Professor or his experiments to Martha. And that if she did, Martha didn't find it all a little odd and mention it to the Doctor or want to investigate further herself. And there was no mention of this groundbreaking event the previous day when Tish seems to have time to meet Martha for lunch and to go to an evening do in the local pub with her family ... I somehow think that for something as large and lavish as Lazarus' demonstration, poor Tish would be totally rushed off her feet the day before ...

Anyway, we get some name drops of Mr Saxon again: the old lady who seems to be Lazarus' main financial partner in the venture (and who also appears to have been with him all his life) says that Saxon is one of the main investors in the project. Oddly the lady isn't named until Martha refers to her later on as Lady Thaw. There's more Saxon to come though ... Thaw was wonderfully played by Thelma Barlow, her out of Coronation Street, proving that sometimes soap actresses can actually act.

I loved the reference to James Bond as the Doctor and Martha arrive, and it was a great shame that this wasn't carried forward into the incidental music, which was mawkish and out of place throughout the episode. I guess that the theme which kept playing was the 'Martha' one, but it seemed wrong and out of place for much of the story.

So Lazarus gets into his machine (a sonic microfield manipulator according to the Doctor) and is regressed to a young man. Meanwhile the Doctor falls foul of Martha's mum, Francine, who is way too overprotective and just nasty. How old is Martha? Isn't she able to make her own decisions as to who she sees? This just didn't ring true to me and edged the scenes way too far into soap territory for my liking.

Lazarus starts chowing down on food - he needs energy - and the Doctor is very suspicious. Shades of The Fly here I felt, and very nicely handled by both Mark Gatiss as Lazarus and David Tennant as the Doctor. Lazarus kisses Martha's hand and heads upstairs with his unnamed old lady.

As Lazarus transforms into a monster and sucks the lady dry, the Doctor and Martha use the labs to analyse Lazarus' DNA (from the kiss) and learn that his genetic structure is still changing. Next on Lazarus' list of munchies is Tish, and the Doctor and Martha arrive on the roof in time to save her, and to watch him transform into some huge scorpion-man thing with a human face and an expandible jaw (definite shades of Predator's monster in the jaw, as well as the alien from the Jeepers Creepers films, and some other films/TV shows that I can't recall the names of at the moment).

The chase is on! The monster gambols around the building after the Doctor, as Martha tries to get everyone out to safety. This is a great chase with some lovely CGI moments and a genuine sense of tension as Lazarus goads the Doctor in a whispery, papery, horrific voice.

While all this is going on, Martha's Mum is approached by a mysterious stranger (played by the unlikely named Bertie Carvel, but he does seem to be a real actor) outside - the same man who had earlier warned her of the Doctor in the reception - and he apparently tells her more about the Doctor ... very worrying and nicely handled, fitting season-arc stuff into the story in a way which was not intrusive.

The Doctor and Martha end up trapped inside Lazarus' machine, and the monster activates it. Luckily the Doctor is able to reverse the polarity (in a nice nod to the Pertwee years) and reflects the power back out again, apparently killing Lazarus (who reverts to young human form on death).

The ambulance arrives to take him away, and the Doctor enjoys a slap and a showdown with Francine before we hear the ambulance crash - the medics have been drained and Lazarus is on the loose again ... you see ... you can never believe that a man named Lazarus will actually be dead when you think he is ...

The Doctor tracks him to nearby Southwark Cathedral where he turns into a monster again chases Martha and Tish up into the bell tower while the Doctor plays the organ, the sound waves created - along with a little extra oomph from the sonic screwdriver - being enough to kill the Lazarus creature and send it crashing to the ground. I loved here the mention of turning it up to '11' - obviously the Doctor is also a fan of Spinal Tap. Also note the allusions to The Quatermass Experiment in the location.

So Lazarus is killed (but is he ...), and I wondered why he still looked like a young man when the Doctor gets to his body, but then instantly reverts to the old Lazarus ... didn't make much sense. If anything he should have been old all along ...

The crisis averted, and it's back to Martha's bedroom for the Doctor to offer to take her with him permanently ... well we knew it was going to happen, but again the interplay and reactions from Martha were excellent. They head off to new adventures, missing the telephone call from Martha's mum: she knows who the Doctor is and Martha is in danger ... and the information comes from Harold Saxon himself!

A great ending to a very entertaining and enjoyable episode. Mark Gatiss was simply brilliant as Lazarus, managing to bring pathos and a sympathetic element to a ruthless and driven character, and his interplays with David Tennant's Doctor were very well handled. The CGI was top notch, and the monster looked real for the most part. I suspect that the other actors could have done with a physical prop on occasion though, and the inclusion of this may have made it all just a little more real. However it was scary and nasty and I can't wait for the action figure ... well ... it has to happen doesn't it?

No Doctor Who next week due to bloomin' Eurovision Song Contest, but there was a trailer showing what's coming up ... scary scarecrows, Captain Jack, spaceships, the Sun, Martha separated from the Doctor, a man tapping a table with his hand ... it's all go! What's confusing though is that these are clips from several of the remaining 7 episodes, and not all from the next episode. I hope kids won't be too disappointed ...

Doctor Who - Evolution of the Daleks

Well what happened there then? The first part of this adventure was exciting and dramatic and built brilliantly ... and then in the concluding part it all seemed to fall to bits, as though they had put all their effort into the first bit and then just forgotten about the second!

The problems all seem to stem from the script, and it looks like no-one cared to ask Helen Raynor what was actually meant to be happening and instead just went with whatever she had come up with. There are several inconsistencies in the plot and the way it all came together and hopefully I'll touch on these as we go through.

So we open with the amazing cliffhanger from last week - the human/Dalek Sec hybrid creature. Someone pointed out that the reason he's not speaking with a Dalek voice is that this voice is created by the casing (as evidenced in a couple of earlier stories) and that's true! I had forgotten this, so I guess we have to then get used to the New York accented Dalek for the story. Sec wants all the humans to become like him, and then the Doctor reveals himself and does one of his speechy things to him - seems that Sec is becoming more human which is a good thing for him, but less so for the other three Daleks. The Doctor makes a radio explode with his all-purpose sonic screwdriver (how does he do this precisely?) and they all run for it, being chased by Daleks and pigmen.

Then we have one of the most ludicous scenes in the show - two Daleks talking in a sewer and one looks around to check it's not being overheard!! By who exactly? And don't the Daleks have sensors for this? It reminded me of the 'thick' Dalek in The Chase (1965) who hesitates and gets its words wrong when reporting.

Back in Hooverville and the Doctor tells Soloman to get his people out as the Daleks need humans for conversion. Then the pigs attack, closely followed by two of the Daleks flying in and blasting everything. Soloman does a War of the Worlds speech to the Daleks and is promptly exterminated. Then the Doctor does the same but is spared by Sec, much to the other Daleks' annoyance. These scenes drag terribly, slowing the action down - maybe we needed Soloman to do this, but the Doctor as well? Sheesh.

Before he leaves with the Daleks, the Doctor gives Martha his psychic paper wallet, but fails to tell her what to do or where to go. That's handy. Poor girl is left to figure it all out on her own ... whether what she eventually does is what the Doctor intended is left to our imagination as, really, she does nothing at all!

Anyway, the Doctor arrives back at the Empire State Building where he rants at the Daleks again. He says the green globby Rutan thing he found was a Dalek embryo ... what? Where did that come from then? There are only four Daleks in the Cult of Skaro and all are accounted for, so where did an extra embryo come from? And the Daleks have 1000 or so humans, brains wiped clean, suspended on pallets in a sort of mad Frankenstein way in the basement of the Building ... what a lot of effort to go to! Constructing all that with no-one knowing or realising. And ... hang on ... the people have their minds wiped, so why were the Daleks last week only after the intelligent ones? Seems a bit of a waste to me. The idea is that the bodies will be filled with Dalek ideas by Dalek DNA going through them in some sort of blue liquid. How does that work then? DNA is an encapsulation of physical attributes, not mental. It says whether you'll have three eyes and no hair or whatever, not whether you'll think like a Dalek or not.

Now comes the biggest load of tripe yet - the Daleks need a gamma radiation strike to activate the bodies, this is coming from a solar flare, and yet it's night time ... so how, when the face of the Earth the Daleks are on is away from the Sun, could a blast of anything from the Sun affect it? And then it's delivered via a lightning bolt - which is electricity and not gamma radiation. And did the whole Earth suffer the same lightning ... and what happened on the side which was actually facing the Sun at the time? The Daleks had attached Dalekaneum to the lightning conductor, it seems, to add their DNA to the gamma radiation to pass to the bodies ... so what was the blue liquid the Doctor helped develop then? And since when did a lightning bolt extract DNA from anything! Does this mean that people who survive being hit by lightning turn into trees or whatever they happen to be touching at the time?

Pauses for breath as all this is so much rubbish that it's hard to get it all down.

So ... we have to believe that the Daleks have managed to convert a load of mind-wiped humans into Daleks via this means. Okay. And that the action of the Doctor in holding onto the lightning conductor somehow adds his Time Lord DNA to the mix.

While all this nonsense is going on, Martha figures out that she has to go to the Empire State Building - which is a good 5 miles from Central Park by the way - and use the Psychic Paper to get in ... well I guess that's okay though I wonder who would be guarding a half-built building anyway ... and then she and Frank and Tallulah and Laszlo get up to the top. She then spends ages frikking around with the plans for the building to try and see the differences between two versions (what?) so that when the Doctor arrives she can tell him it's Dalekaneum on the mast. However before this we get the second most ludicrous scene in the episode - the pigs in the lift! Standing there, looking embarrassed as they ascend. This has to be one of the most unintentionally hilarious scenes in Doctor Who ever. Made me laugh anyway.

So the humans are converted to Daleks, and Dalek Sec is overruled by the other three Daleks and put in chains - why didn't they just exterminate him? Dalek Kahn takes command of the Dalek army, and the Doctor needs somewhere to use for a final showdown ... so what other set do we have in these episodes? The Theatre! Of course ... so he, Martha, Frank, Tallulah and Laszlo head for the Theatre where the Doctor summons the Daleks with the ever-useful Sonic Screwdriver.

They mysteriously arrive in a flash of pyrotechnics on the stage, and with Dalek Sec crawling on the floor before them? What? Why? Why bring him along? Why make him crawl? Oh well.

The human Dalek army arrive, neatly kitted out with spanking new Dalek exterminator guns - should we ask where they came from? No, thought not - and there's a standoff. The Daleks try to kill the Doctor but Sec blocks the blast and is finally killed himself. The human Daleks are then ordered to kill the Doctor but they do not. Instead they ask why they should. So the Daleks and human Daleks fight, and the two real Daleks are blown up by the weapons. Interestingly, the Daleks don't just kill the Doctor themselves in all this ...

So Dalek Kahn promptly destroys all the human Daleks. Now if he could do this, then why bother having the Daleks and human Daleks fight at all? Why didn't Kahn just kill them all the moment they turned on the Daleks?

The fun's all over and the Doctor returns to confront Dalek Kahn, who, just like Sec before him, engages temporal shift and vanishes. Handy function that.

So it's all over bar the shouting. Laszlo is saved by the Doctor who whips up something in the Daleks' lab to stabilise him and stop him dying, Tallulah has her man back (although he now looks like a pig) and the Doctor and Martha return to the TARDIS where the Doctor predicts he will meet Dalek Kahn again one day ...

So after a very promising start, Evolution of the Daleks descended into a runaround which really makes little sense as soon as you start to actually try and follow the plot. The pigmen were a nice idea (and I heard them dubbed as 'Hogrons' the other day which I liked a lot - the Ogrons were an earlier race of ape-like humanoids that the Daleks used as slaves in the stories Day of the Daleks and Frontier in Space) and the story looked magnificent. The actors were all first rate, and the CGI and effects were well up to par. Unfortunately this one fell down on the script ... the most important element of any story.

The ideas seemed to be pinched from the earlier story The Evil of the Daleks (a search for the 'human factor' so the Daleks could become more human and thus win out over humanity, however this in itself was a trick so that the Dalek Emperor could find the 'Dalek factor' and instead turn all the humans into walking Daleks). However there it all made much more sense.

Next week it looks like a bit of a runaround ... Mark Gatiss, Professor Lazarus (now what could that name possibly infer), more of Martha's family (I so hope it's not going to be another soap-fest), and a rather nice looking CGI monster.

Doctor Who - Daleks in Manhattan

Writing about a TV show can be great fun, but strangely, the hardest reviews to pen can be those where you loved the show/book/film and so on. I found this about Daleks in Manhattan. I really enjoyed watching the episode on Saturday, and then I loved it even more on a re-watch. It seems to encapsulate everything in an effective and economic way. Nothing felt rushed, and everything seemed to make sense. And yet there was so much packed into it! So much information and scenes and characters that logic says it should have made no sense, however it did make sense, and was a wonderful slice of Doctor Who.

We open in Manhattan, at the New York Revue, where Tallulah (nicely played by Miranda Raison, although with an annoying 'Sandra Dickinson' type accent) is preparing to go on stage. She is given a white rose by her beau Laszlo (Ryan Carnes), and heads off. Laszlo however hears noises and on exploring, is confronted by a pigman! This is a great little opening sequence, nicely setting the scene and revealing the first monster before the credits run.

It's a day or so after November 1 1930, and the Doctor and Martha arrive at the base of the Statue of Liberty on Liberty island, New York. The Empire State building is still being constructed and the depression is on, leading many man to become unemployed, heading for 'Hooverville', a shantytown set up in Central Park. The Doctor and Martha head there and meet up with a man called Soloman, de facto leader of Hooverville. Soloman is very well played by Hugh Quarshie as a man of peace and common sense, who is not afraid to get his hands dirty as well. In fact, the only real question here is how the Doctor and Martha got from Liberty Island to Central Park! It's about ten miles away from Battery Park at the South of Manhattan Island, and I have no idea if a ferry was running from Liberty Island to Manhattan at that time.

Meanwhile, at the Empire State Building, Mr Diagoras (great name), played in perhaps the weakest performance of the episode by Eric Loren, is overseeing the completion of the structure, but his masters want it finished more quickly. Then, of course, we meet the masters, and given the title of the episode, there was really no point in dragging it out - it's the Daleks - and their first appearance in the art deco lift, flanked by two pigmen is brilliantly handled. Their voices are superb courtesy of Nick Briggs who really manages to breathe life into the creatures. I was reminded throughout by their appearance in The Evil of the Daleks back in 1966 as their talking and scheming was reminiscent of that earlier story. The Daleks want the tower finished, and mention something about a gamma strike being accelerated, and Diagoras says he knows where more workers can be obtained ... Hooverville, where he wants men to clear a ceiling collapse in the sewers. This is actually a little strange: if the Daleks wanted men to finish the building, why does this become wanting men to clear an apparently non-existant sewer collapse (ie men for the Daleks to either turn into pigmen, or to use their intelligence for an as yet unknown purpose). Oh well.

The Doctor and Martha volunteer, along with Soloman and a man named Frank. They all head into the tunnels and follow tunnel number 273. The Doctor finds a green glowing lump of organic matter on the floor which looks for all the world like a Rutan (ref Horror of Fang Rock) and pops it in his pocket to analyse properly later on.

Meanwhile the Daleks/Diagoras want some Dalek base panels affixed to the radio mast on top of the building ... The Daleks are pleased with Diagoras and take him to meet their leader, the black Dalek Sec, in the basement of the building. I wondered why Diagoras pulled his gloves on when meeting Sec. Strange thing to do.

Now some threads start to come together. The Doctor, Martha, Soloman and Frank are chased by pigmen, and all but Frank escape up into the theatre where Tallulah greets them with a gun. It's two weeks after the events of the pre-credits where Laszlo disappeared and as the Doctor cobbles together something to help him analyse the DNA of the organic matter he found in the tunnels, Soloman returns to Hooverville to rouse the men to take up arms and defend themselves. Meanwhile Martha sees an altered Laszlo watching Tallulah in the stage show and gives chase.

Poor Diagoras is to be used as part of Dalek Sec's final experiment and is bodily dragged into Sec's casing by the mutant within - a wonderful image and very well realised on screen.

The Doctor realises that the fundamental DNA sequence of the green blob is 467-989 ... which means the planet of origin of the matter is Skaro - he now knows what he's up against. Daleks!

Martha, Tallulah and the Doctor all head into the sewers again. Martha is captured by pigmen and taken to the Daleks, Tallulah and the Doctor meet Laszlo and realise what he has become - a pigman himself. Tallulah is sent back while the Doctor, Martha and Laszlo join the party of 'intelligent' humans being taken to the Daleks' laboratory - they meet up with Frank in the party as well.

Sec is in trouble. Having 'eaten' Diagoras he has a nasty case of indigestion it seems. There are lots of neat Dalek references dotted around. Words like Dalekanium, Transgenic Laboratory and so on ... but the Doctor (who strangely has not been spotted by the Daleks at this time - usually he would be singled out and sentenced to extermination within seconds of meeting the creatures) tells Martha to ask what's happening as they don't know who she is. She does so, and the Daleks announce that they are bearing witness to a new age, the birth of a Dalek for life outside the shell ...

Sec's casing opens once more, and a humanoid figure staggers out - it is Diagoras, but his head and hands (black gloves and all) have been transformed into a hybrid between human and Dalek. The creature announces in Diagoras' voice that he is their future! This is a brilliant final scene, and I only wish that the Radio Times had not gone and spoiled it for everyone by revealing the monster on the cover! What a waste of a great cliffhanger, and the image could have been used on the following week's magazine anyway. And the voice! What's up with the voice? The creature sounded just like Diagoras and nothing like a Dalek, not even a hint ... not good.

Hopefully next week things will pick up. I have a worry though, that with the Daleks being so good in this episode, that the introduction of a 'Davros' figure will draw the attention away from them, and they will be reduced to mere stooges which is what hampered and made them less of a threat throughout the late seventies and eighties period of the show. Genesis of the Daleks is a true classic, but this is down to a great script and a bravura performance from Michael Wisher as Davros. The Daleks themselves never have much impact in any subsequent story as all the attention is always on Davros (and he became increasingly stereotypical as a ranting character as well). I hope the same won't happen here and that the Sec/Diagoras hybrid has more to do than just take centre stage.

Overall, I really enjoyed the episode. Lots happening, great visuals, good characters, and Daleks which are actually scheming and behaving like Daleks should. It was scary in the sewers, and the Daleks appeared a lot - loads to keep the kids happy. It's not explained how the Daleks survived being drawn into the Void at the end of Doomsday though - we know that Dalek Sec survived (with his convenient time shift), but we never saw the other members of the Cult of Skaro get away. I guess we just have to assume that they did ...

Doctor Who - Gridlock

So the worst didn't happen and the football match was not a draw and didn't go to extra time, meaning that Doctor Who was transmitted as scheduled. And everyone breathes a huge sigh of relief.

But what of the episode? A bit of a mish mash really. It's another which seems to be dividing opinion as to whether it is the best yet or whether it is somewhat on the disappointing side. I have to say that for me, it's the disappointing side of the fence that I fall. That's the thing about New Who, it is well made, beautifully shot and directed, with some superb CGI effects and performances, and yet the plots ... oh the plots. But we shall come back to that point later on.

We open with a couple, Ma and Pa as they are identified in the credits, in a car, calling for help as they are attacked. This is a great opening, nicked from too many past Doctor Who adventures to be original (The Sea Devils? Terror of the Zygons?) but it still serves. But why is that couple from the opening credits of Desperate Housewives in a car anyway?

Post credits, and the Doctor decides to take Martha to the far future, to the year 5 Billion and 53, to New Earth, where they arrive in the city of New New York, but in the lower levels which seem to be some sort of deserted slum with drug pushers freely hawking their wares from permanent cabins. However the whole grim scene is given an upbeat and lighthearted feel by the music and is basically the same as in The Long Game where the Cronk burger vendors sell their wares. Not a good message to give to kids I'd have thought. The Doctor and Martha meet a girl who wants to forget her parents. Seems they have gone to the motorway and she's lost them. She gets her 'forget' drug and seems happy with this. However next thing we know, Martha is kidnapped by a man and a woman who want her to make up the numbers in their car. They head off to the motorway with the Doctor in hot pursuit.

The couple, Milo and Cheen, nicely played by Travis Oliver and Leonora Crichlow, explain to Martha that they need to get to the 'Fast Lane' which is at the bottom of the motorway which is otherwise choked with cars and pollution and fumes. They're headed for Brooklyn and it will take them 6 years to travel the 10 miles there.

Meanwhile the Doctor also gets to the motorway and is taken into a car by a cat person called Thomas Kincaid Brannigan, played in a nice cameo by Ardel O'Hanlon. Brannigan and his wife, the human Valerie, have a family of kittens and have been travelling for 12 years and have crossed just 5 miles in that time.

Hold on. Woah. All this is very nice, and the visuals are stunning, but let's just think about this for a moment. 12 years to travel 5 miles? Why not just walk? Who in their right mind would spend their life in a car on a motorway? You just wouldn't bother! Moreover this simply does not make sense with revelations later on in the plot ... And how can a union between a cat person and a human result in feline kittens? And presumably Valerie and Brannigan handled the birth all by themselves?

So Brannigan tries to help the Doctor find the car that Martha is in, and so he asks a couple of elderly lesbians called Alice and May, who also happen to be car-spotters. With their help they identify the right car. But how does Alice or May (I'm not sure which is which) know how many cars joined at which junction? She shouldn't be able to see them for the smog, and in any case presumably their car is somewhere else entirely in the melee. If the information is from the computer, then why can't Brannigan access it directly? And even if she could somehow see the cars, how does she know how many people are in each? Nice idea, but it just doesn't hold up.

The Doctor meanwhile realises that there are no police or authorities in the traffic jam, and that all the cars are basically on their own. So how does Milo get authority to go down to the Fast Lane so quickly then? Someone must be working the systems to make that happen. And if you can do that when you have three or more people in a car, then why doesn't Brannigan do the same as they have 'kittens' in the back and thus more than three people ... why would you choose to stay put if you could go to a lane where you might actually reach your destination in your lifetime? Speaking of which, presumably some of the cars have corpses in where the occupants have died ... what happens to them then?

Then we get a tedious bit of hymn-singing for no good reason. This slowed the pace right down and I was starting to drum my fingers. Too many unanswered questions and vast plot holes here. Lots of style but very little substance. Something obviously needs to happen so the Doctor decides to go down by jumping from car to car. Nice idea and effectively done, with lots of little cameos from various people from naturists to white and red people to a couple of oriental teenagers.

Meanwhile Martha, Milo and Cheem have made it to the Fast Lane, but another car, apparently driven by a woman in a badly fitting dog mask called Javil (I think), wants them to get out the way as something is down there. This is the first instance in New Who of a bad looking make-up job. I wonder what they were thinking of? It looked so fake and it's a blessing it wasn't on screen for too long.

So the Doctor arrives at the lowest level of the jam and from a car driven by a bowler-hatted man, creates a pulse which clears the smog and pollution to enable him to see what lurks at the bottom of the tunnel. It's giant crabs snapping at the air and any passing cars - Macra! According to the Doctor, the Macra were the scourge of the Galaxy, feeding on gas and using humans as slaves. However this was billions of years ago and so these Macra have somehow devolved.

But if the Macra feed off the gas, then why are they trying to catch the passing cars? And when Martha's car turns all its power off, and is left alone by the creatures, where exactly is it? Is it parked somewhere? If so, why not turn the power on every so often to replenish the air? None of this is explained.

Okay ... time for some explanation at least. The Face of Boe who is in the upper city, has sent Novice Hame to find the Doctor which she does by jumping from car to car ... now the chances of her actually finding him by this method are millions to one against, so how does she do it? And she has a teleport to bring him back but only enough power for one trip ... all sounds very convenient. The Doctor then learns that the city above is dead apart from the Face and Hame. Everyone has been killed by an airborne virus which wiped the population out in 7 minutes some 24 years before. They just had time to shut all the cars in the motorway thus saving the occupants from death...

But hang on ... what about the drug vendors, Cheem and Milo, Brannigan and Valerie? They all joined the motorway less than 24 years ago. Why weren't they all killed by the virus then? And if they can join the motorway, it can't be sealed off. So why are all the exits to it sealed? And if there's no power to open the motorway without the Doctor's intervention, then why waste power on things like Sally Calypso and pointless police 'on hold' messages? And there must be some systems operating as the access request to use the Fast Lane still works. It's all so fragile on logic.

The Face of Boe gives the last of his energy to allow the Doctor to open the hatches above the motorway and to allow all the cars to fly up and out - I assume he also disabled all the limiters on the cars which prevented them from changing lanes or flying out of formation - I have never seen such a well behaved traffic jam in my life! But why couldn't Hame do this? All the Doctor seemed to do was to connect up some wires and pull a lever ...

The Doctor tells Martha to come to the Senate building - like she would know where that was! - and she arrives in time for the Face of Boe to die, but not before telling the Doctor his great secret ... that the Doctor is not the last of the Time Lords and that he is not alone. Gosh.

And that's about it really. Way, way too many holes to hold together rationally at all. The Macra were a nice idea but very throwaway, adding nothing to the skeletal plot and being just a nice kiss to the past.

But what a crying shame when the whole thing could have been far more integrated. How about this for starters ...

The Macra, as established in The Macra Terror, have an intelligent leader which infiltrates a colony and using hypnosis and mind control, makes the humans do its bidding to generate gas so it can survive. So when Martha's car stopped at the lower level, the group leave it to try and find another way out. Cue lots of creeping through dark tunnels, chased by giant crabs and the like - resulting in tension and excitement and kids hiding behind sofas. Meanwhile the Doctor discovers that the Macra are behind Sally Calypso and the other messages, controlling the motorway and sending cars down to be snapped up by the young Macra at the base who like some meat with their gas. The whole traffic jam is being kept down there by the Macra to provide the pollution for the creatures to breed and survive. So the Doctor defeats the Macra Controller up above, and Martha and the others find a way out down below, or maybe switch on the air vents or something so that the pollution can escape - thus showing Martha's inginuity and making the Doctor realise that he may need her in the future.

This uses the same basic set-up, but is an actual story to go with the characters and the situation that is in place. It doesn't need much tweaking for this to be done and yet instead we get something which is fundamentally forgettable and which puts all the focus on the wrong things for a 45 minute story to work - namely the Doctor and Martha's relationship and the whole, ultimately dreary at this point, business with Hame and the Face of Boe (and I know this is meant to be significant for later in the season, but this could still have all been included, but better integrated into a good, solid story rather than feeling like tacked onto the end).

It's such a shame when everything else is so right, that a coherent plot could not have been developed to wrap it all up in. As it is, I wonder how this 'story' will be remembered in years to come - certainly my brother could not remember what it was all about a few days later, and his 6 year old son was fidgety and bored for most of it ...

Next week: 'They always survive while I lose everything.' The Daleks are back!

Summer's Here

I was going to blog today on yesterday's episode of Doctor Who ... unfortunately I'm in a bad way today. Summer is here and so my hay fever has kicked into overdrive today and I have a muzzy head, am sneezing all over the place, eyes itching, throat irritated and generally feeling like rubbish. Add to this a nasty ulcer on the side of my tongue at the back which paralyses it and makes it sooooo painful to talk, swallow and eat and I am really not in the mood for anything much. It's also hot ... really hot for the time of year. I think the weather people said 80 degrees or something today and it's only mid-April. I really dread to think what the Summer will be like if it's this hot already. And no, I don't live in Spain or Florida or India or anywhere you might expect it to be warm at this time of year, but plain old London, England. So as my concentration span is like that of a gnat at the moment, and I'm feeling like death warmed up, I think I'll leave the blogging on Who until tomorrow when hopefully the antihistamines will take effect and I'll be feeling better. I have been taking them all week, but every year I get one day where nothing will touch the allergies and it looks like today is my day of hell for 2007. Went out this morning and got some Anabesol liquid for the ulcer - at least it deadens it and allows me to eat in a relatively pain-free manner - and I think I need to find the cheapest place for Loretadine this afternoon ... maybe a trip to the local big Tescos is in order. At least it's air conditioned in there :) David

Doctor Who - The Shakespeare Code

I can't decide whether I loved The Shakespeare Code or not ... I know that may seem strange, but like Love & Monsters I've just got a feeling that it may split the audience. I have heard people saying they were disappointed by it, and others raving ... well I wasn't disappointed, and there are certainly some things to rave about ...

We're in London in 1599 and there are witches abroad (no, not in France ... in London!). These are classic stock witches. Ugly, hook-nosed, and they cackle a lot. And one of them is just so drop dead cute and stunning ... That would be Lilith when not in witch mode, and actress Christina Cole is bloomin marvellous. She has presence and really seems to enjoy herself. The other two, imaginatively named Doomfinger and Bloodtide, are really just there as cyphers for Lilith and we never see them as anything other than hideous crones.

The Doctor and Martha arrive ... and the immediate problem is that no-one seems to notice them. Not a single person looks at them, wonders about their modern clothes, or the fact that the TARDIS has just materialised apparently in the middle of a busy street ... it all seems strange somehow. The Doctor decides to go to the Globe to watch a bit of Shakespeare and it seems that Love's Labour's Lost is playing. At the end, Martha calls for the Author, a cry which is apparently taken up by the rest of the audience, and the Doctor muses that this is where the tradition started - but why did the chap who looked a bit like Edmund Blackadder standing by Martha not even glance at her before he took up the cry? Again, seemed strange.

So conveniently Will Shakespeare was backstage and comes out to take the applause and to announce - prompted by Lilith - that his next play will be Love's Labour's Won. Another problem - the Globe is completely packed, and yet Lilith has what appears to be a royal box all to herself ... yet she works as a servant at the Inn ... so she has access to money and priviledge to get the box (via various witchy means I guess), and yet no-one spots her or questions that she is also a servant? Seemed strange.

Later, at the Elephant Inn - I would have expected this to have been the Anchor (which is closest to the Globe), or possibly The George ... never heard of The Elephant! - the Doctor and Martha meet Shakespeare and Will is quite taken with Martha's beauty. A nice touch here is when Martha starts to speak mock-Shakespeare to Will, and the Doctor tells her not to, very reminiscent of the similar scene in Tooth and Claw where Rose starts to speak mock-Scottish. Will is also not fooled by the psychic paper ...

Enter the Master of the Revels who will shut the play down as it has not gone through his office for approval. Lilith is not happy with this at all, and so snips a piece of the Master's hair and, using it with a little voodoo-type doll, causes him to drown in the street. This is a very effective sequence, and quite scary. Unfortunately the editing makes it look as though the actor just has a mouthful of water which he spits on each shot, rather, as revealed in the Confidential episode, being a complex rig of piping which means he can constantly spew water ... shame the effect wasn't better realised in the edit. But then Martha knows his name - Mr Lynley - even though he never gave it and no-one else mentions it on-screen. Historical pointer here ... according to Wikipedia, the Master of the Revels from 1579 until 1610 was a man named Edmund Tylney.

So now the witches put the next stage of their plan into action, and using a potion, control Shakespeare to write the last lines of his new play so as to perform a summoning spell. This is a nice scene, and I liked the puppet used to control Will a lot. At the end of it, Lilith kills the landlady, Dolly Bailey, and escapes on a broomstick! Talk about ostentatious. The Doctor, Martha and Will decide to visit the Globe as the Doctor is suspicious of the 14-sidedness of the building and feels there is a connection there ... all to do with the power of words. They go visit the architect, Peter Streete, who has been driven mad and is in Bedlam (which Martha, strangely, hasn't heard of). In the real world, the Globe opened in Autumn 1599, and was designed by Peter Street (without a final 'e'). However Street also designed and built the Fortune Theatre in 1600, so he was neither mad nor killed in 1599. Has history been changed? Was the Fortune Theatre therefore never constructed?

The Doctor uses a sort of Vulcan mind-meld on Peter and gets him to admit that the Globe was built to the witches' design and not his. Also that the witches were in All Hallows Street in London. But then Doomfinger appears and kills Streete. The Doctor figures out that she is a Carrionite and she vanishes in pain when named. The Doctor realises that this is all a plot to allow the Carrionites back to Earth, and that the right words spoken in the Globe will achieve this.

This does lead me to wonder why all the fuss then? As the words were given to Shakespeare by Lilith, and as the Carrionite witches can transport themselves anywhere, why don't they just go to the Globe one night and speak the words themselves?

The race is on. Shakespeare returns to the Globe and tries to stop the play, but the witches are there with their little voodoo doll of him and he is knocked unconcious. The Doctor and Martha go to All Hallows Street to try and stop the Carrionites, but Lilith is waiting for them. She takes some of the Doctor's hair and using another doll (or DNA replicator as he identifies it) stops one of his hearts. He recovers and with Martha races off back to the Globe. I loved the sequence here where Lilith mock-seduces the Doctor - I wonder how tempted the production team were to add in a snog between them - and then flies backwards out the window to hover in mid-air. Very effective indeed.

The three witches cackle as the play reaches its conclusion and the Carrionites are summoned. They appear in a spiral, floaty things which look nothing like the three witches ... strange and more like the Dementors from Harry Potter. The Doctor revives Will and tells him to reverse the spell, to improvise words to stop the summoning. Shakespeare does this (with a little help from the Doctor on some coordinates) and the creatures are returned to the crystal globe in which they were trapped, along with Lilith, Doomfinger and Bloodtide. The audience applauds, thinking that the performance was all special effects. Surely this would have been noted at the time by diarists? Another piece of historical fudging perhaps ...

Anyway, it's all over, and Will tries for a last time to seduce Martha (she rejects him as his breath smells), and the Doctor takes the witches' globe to store in an attic in the TARDIS. But then Queen Elisabeth I arrives, and, much to the Doctor's suprise, recognises him and denounces him. He and Martha race for the TARDIS and away before she can carry out her threat of beheading him. This is a lovely and unexpected cameo from Angela Pleasance, well known film actress and daughter of horror-film great Donald Pleasance.

The cast as a whole is worthy of special plaudits. Dean Lennox Kelly's Shakespeare is really rather good, if being perhaps a little too modern and with-it. I mentioned Christina Cole before, stunningly superb as Lilith as well as being totally gorgeous and watchable. The other cast members were all equally good in their own right, each giving convincing and believable performances.

I loved the music as well. For once, Murray Gold has not swamped the visuals and dialogue with way too much, and the subtle cadences and choral arrangements for the Carrionites was brilliant and complimentary to the story. The CGI was also good, except that there is one distant shot of the Globe where the river Thames is no-where in sight! The original Globe was not on the bank of the Thames as the current version is, but back a couple of streets, even so, the river should have been in shot. The Carrionites were puzzling. Were they all like the witches? Or like the floaty things? They can change their appearance from hag-like women to beautiful ladies, so maybe the floaty things are their true form? The CGI of them was okay, but I would have perhaps liked to have seen more of them.

Overall, as I said at the start, I found much to enjoy in The Shakespeare Code, and not very much to fault - and on the whole the problems are with historical fact, which can perhaps be glossed over for the sake of the production - and generally speaking it's a great little tale. Very reminiscent of Tooth and Claw I thought.

Next week seems to be back to the future and New New York for Ardel O'Hanlan as a cat-man, lots of flying cars and something nasty in the sewers ...

Doctor Who - Smith and Jones

It's a platoon of Judoon on the moon ... I wonder whether the whole episode came from that rhyming sentence. If it did, then hopefully Russell T Davies will write more like that as it certainly worked for me.

Anticipation was high waiting for the third series. With two brilliant seasons of Doctor Who behind us, weathering a change of Doctor in the middle and the reinvention of the Cybermen along the way, what would the third series of stories bring, especially as Billie Piper's Rose was no longer with the show?

I needn't have worried. Smith and Jones was a superb opener. A crowd pleaser at every level, Davies' script shone with witty one liners and action, a really cool monster, and of course the introduction of a new companion.

In some respects, I found the opening of Smith and Jones reminiscent of the start of Rose, with the new girl - here, Martha Jones, medical student - and her family/affairs being introduced in a snappy shorthand style which is very attractive. This also introduces Martha as very much a 2000's girl, reliant on her mobile phone to stay in touch, and talking with everyone simultaneously while juggling her job and family relationships effortlessly. She also quite a fox, easy on the eye and very natural on-screen.

Martha, quite literally, bumps into the Doctor, who brandishes his tie saying, 'See ...?' before he disappears off into the crowds. Strange ... but actually totally brilliant by the time the episode ends.

Martha is a student at the Royal Hope Hospital which stands on the bank of the Thames opposite the Houses of Parliament. Interesting to see that the river is back ... last we saw, it, and most of the North Sea had apparently been drained down a hole under the Thames Barrier ... Anyway, the hospital is being plagued with static electricity, or plasmacoils as the Doctor later puts it, and is also being visited by a couple of Zovirax men. I had to laugh when I first saw these chaps, and commented that it was the Zovirax lady. For those not in the UK, Zovirax is a brand of cold sore cream, and the advertising features an attractive lady who wears black leather and an all-black motorcycle helmet when riding her bike to work, but then she keeps the helmet on all day (including while swimming and doing yoga classes) because she is embarrassed by the state of her lips. Anyway, I was doubly amused when Martha later described these characters as being from 'planet Zovirax' - brilliant!

Also in the hospital is a little old lady called Miss Finnegan who seems to be salt deficient, and a cheeky patient called Doctor John Smith who is there for unspecified reasons ... Before long, it starts raining outside, and in a superb piece of scripting which picks up on the mobile phone theme from before, Martha and her sister realise something is wrong as it is just raining on the hospital ... and then the rain starts falling upwards! Next thing we know, the hospital is on the moon!

Wow! That's how to use CGI. From the hole where the hospital used to be on Earth to the building standing isolated on the moon ... an awesome set of visuals for the episode. Effective and elegant in their simplicity. There follows Martha meeting up with the Doctor properly - he knew there was something up - and an explanation about Martha's cousin working at Canary Wharf and not being seen since the business with the Cybermen. I was glad they got this out the way quickly though so we can move onto the next highlight, the arrival of the Judoon.

More mindblowing effects as the ships arrive and disgorge their troops. But aren't they noisy? I thought there was a vacuum in space and sound didn't travel. However we can perhaps forgive this and imagine that maybe the moon has a very small atmosphere (actually, it doesn't), that some sound does travel on the surface. Or maybe it's transmitted through the rock underfoot ... or something ...

As the Judoon Cyber-stomp their way to the hospital, we discover that the sweet little old lady is actually a blood-sucking plasmavore. A very creepy performance from Anne Reid who gives it her all in a part which seemed strangely curtailed. I loved the business with the straw as well ... adds a sort of macabre twist to it all. And kudos for naming the hopsital administrator Mr Stoker ... nice touch.

The Judoon are very effective. As storm troops they are reminiscent of the Sontarans, but really look quite different. I liked the idea of the rhino heads, and the voices were a brilliant vocalisation by the every-reliable Nick Briggs. They did remind me of the Mangalores from the film The Fifth Element though. I also appreciated the bit where they first speak an alien language and then have to assimilate the language of the natives. The idea of them cataloguing everyone and then marking them with a marker-pen cross was hilarious. I can't wait for kids to start doing the same to their friends.

So ... what's actually going on? Well the Judoon are trying to locate the Plasmavore who killed the child princess of Padraval Regency Nine. To do this, they have used an H2O scoop (do what?) to move the hospital from the Earth to the moon, as the Judoon have no jurisdiction on the Earth and the moon is neutral territory. So there's lots of running about and exitement as the Doctor and Martha work out who the Plasmavore is, and how to stop her. The Doctor ends up allowing her to suck and assimilate his own blood so that she doesn't register as human to the Judoon. This would seem to be a risky approach as if the Doctor loses all his blood, then doesn't he die? Or at least regenerate? And what's all the stuff about the CAT scanner being modified to fry the brains of everyone in a 250,000 mile radius, but somehow a flimsy screen can protect the Plasmavore? A bit of a mcguffin methinks and something to add a little more tension to the ending as the oxygen runs out in the hospital, the Judoon leave having killed the Plasmavore and her remaining attendant Slab (Mr Zovirax), and the Doctor seems to be dead.

Of course it all ends happily, with the hospital returned to Earth, everyone saved (except for the poor soul who hit a Judoon over the head with a vase - he was disintegrated for his trouble) and Martha able to attend her family party. Of course it's back to a random episode of EastEnders as the family has a huge row leaving Martha standing on her own. But the Doctor is there and he invites her back to his TARDIS. These scenes are lovely, and I thought that the miming of the Doctor to Martha's '... but it's bigger on the inside' was simply inspired. We also find out what the Doctor and Martha's brief meeting at the start was all about ... a cracking idea and very well executed.

Overall I can't fault Smith and Jones. Sure, there are a few inconsistencies in there (water in the Thames, sound on the moon) but the episode rocked along at a good pace, the introductions were well handled, the action superb, the effects awesome, and the monsters nice and scary. A tremendous opening episode for the series, and perhaps the best of the opening episodes to date, hitting all the right notes and setting things up well for the next twelve weeks.

We even had the first mentions of Mr Saxon for the season. First from the intern Oliver Morganstern when he mentioned that the Judoon proved Mr Saxon right: we're not alone in the universe; and then another 'Vote Saxon' poster seen in the alleyway at the end.

Next week: The Globe Theatre, witches, a somewhat hip Shakespeare ... looks good.