Doctor Who, Series 5, Episode 7: Dreaming of the Valeyard.

DOCTOR WHO
‘Amy's Choice’
15/05/2010
BBC One

In the words of the Doctor's future wife, SPOILERS!!!

Now, with that formality out of the way, let's dwell on the first truly great episode of this series. 'Amy's Choice' is simply far more mature, believable and nuanced than any of the episodes that have gone before it, and probably every episode that will follow. The dialogue is excellent and the script is competent and well thought out. The story line is compelling and the pacing is wonderful. What more could you ask for? Well, maybe a plot that’s not akin to The Mind Robber, but you can’t have it all one supposes – nigh-on fifty-years worth of Who will led to some repetition after all.

The plot, for those who want it over and done with, is this: Via some psychic contamination, the Doctor's hate, guilt, self-loathing and sadism manifests itself as the 'Dream Lord' who puts the Doc, Rory and Amy through a literal nightmare (or three), forcing them to make some serious choices...

...This is ingenious simply because it allows the characters to either develop or reveal hitherto hidden depths. Amy learns she really loves Rory, while Rory proves how much he loves the deranged ginger tart in turn. The Doctor meanwhile is revealed as both solution, villain and matchmaker, using the experience to lead Amy away from him and choose Rory. In fact, it could be read as the Doctor using the experience all along to teach Amy that lesson, that one day the Doctor will have to leave her, and Rory is what she really wants. Rory meanwhile leaves behind his ideal, sterile 'reality' for the imperfect but more human and genuine reality that awaits him. He learns that having a house, a child on the way and a job as a country doctor isn't enough - he needs the truth more, his self-indulgent ponytail cut off as a gesture of adulthood.

This is of course probably the most brutal episode in years. There's at least two suicides, killer aliens hiding in the bodies of old people murdering children and postmen in equal measure, betrayal and barely repressed bitterness, a pregnancy that never comes to be, bereavement, major existential crises and the Doctor finally becoming what the new series has always seemed to want him to be: a villain, a monster and a dire foe.

This does of course fit in with one of Nu Who's worst traits, its deranged obsession with diminishing the Doctor and making him look like a total wanker. (Sort of a Reverse Spike, for all the Buffy fans that Nu Who in part is rather keen to woo.) This is so 1980s, when you think about it, but 'somewho' it all seems rather lame, an adolescent iconoclasm in an age where po-mo is dead and we really do need to pick sides again.

But that's the only quibble. This same conceit is inspired in many other ways - the 'Dream Lord', played with tangible malice and cruelty by Toby Jones, is both the conscience and the Greek chorus of the story, haunting the Doctor up to and including the last frame. You may care to watch the episode twice to see all the clues that reveal who he really is. It also puts the Doctor in a new light, no longer falling in love with his assistant but trying to save her from that fate and do the 'right thing'. (Everyone chooses to in this one, which may or may not be redemption, or simply a delay of the inevitable.) And yet, it is probably not the last time we will see the Dream Lord: He echoes the Doctor's future evil regeneration, the Valeyard (from the Colin Baker era, for all the completists out there), and may be seen as his warm-up. It isn't too much like Fight Club - just in case you're wondering.

So maybe they should just give in, stop trying to make the Doctor a hero and just make him a monster for a series or two, or at least make him amoral again, like William Hartnell's Doctor. But that might blow the gaff - after all, he's still meant to be at least officially a 'hero', albeit one that has shit hurled at him non-stop, and yet this episode suggests there's much to be explored if they actually had the balls to take it as far as it can go. They won't of course, but 'Amy's Choice' shows how it could be.

Matt Smith is also getting better, slowly but surely moulding his Doctor into something that's not entirely Tennant, but with much work left to do. Arthur Darvill's slightly beleaguered Rory really shines this time, his journey every bit as taught and troubled as the Doctor, whilst the non-stop low-level love/hate between the two is wonderful. Shockingly, Amy Pond (or Karen Gillan as her parents call her) is bearable here too, mainly because the script reins in her worst traits and forces her to evolve as a character too. 'So what is the point of you then?' she spits, as the Doctor reveals to her what we all know but which she was too immature to accept: the Doctor can't always save the day, and only a child can't agree with that fact. A child like Amy.

And yet the story is ultimately about love. Rory and Amy realise how much they love each other, and the Doctor reveals how much he loves them both too. But it's not a romantic love, but the kinf that is necessary if sometimes monstrous, leering back at the Doctor on the reflective surface of his Tardis console, not gone but simply waiting.

WHOPOINTS 8.5

Doctor Who, Series 5, Episode 6: Venetian Vampires Without Bite.

DOCTOR WHO
‘Vampires In Venice’
08/05/2010
BBC One

One truth often overlooked about Doctor Who is that the men are better than the women. No, that's not sexism. What I mean is that the male companions always seem more interesting and fleshed out than most of the female companions as a rule, the only exceptions being Liz (Who III), Leela & Romana (Who IV) and Ace (Who VII) who instead were women who were trying or were able to be part of what was still a men's world, and so had much more going on under the surface.

But the male companions still stand out, because the dynamic was different. With female companions, it was often a fatherly relationship with the Doctor, as opposed to today's non-stop Electra Complex love affairs. But with the men, it was often more complicated and dynamic, the glorious spectacle of two or more difficult blokes travelling through time and space and getting on each other's tits.

Top of the pile has to be Jamie, whose relationship with Who II swung from father-and-son to pissed off married couple to squabbling children, often all in the same scene. Or the Brigadier, whose relationship with the Doc was that of a brother who'd lay his life down for the other and vice versa. Of course it was also the sort of brotherly relationship where they just couldn't fucking stand each other, the frustrated spite of the Doctor and the barely suppressed hurt of the Brig masterfully played out by Pertwee, Baker and Courtney. Or poor put-upon Sergeant Benton, who took all the flak from those angry posh gits with a very British stoicism. The star turn that was Harry Reid. Or the looming Shakespearean Tragedy that was Adric. Going back to the Hartnell days, there was Ian, serving as the angry conscience for what was then an essentially amoral Doctor, and Steven, through which the show began to properly explore the implications and ironies of the Doctor in a way today's angstfests can't even begin to ape.

Even latter day male Who companions are more interesting than the Roses and the Amys. Poor old Mickey, shafted by his woman and overshadowed by a transdimensional prima donna, his reconciliation with the latter coming at the cost of the former who had long since cast him aside. Or Captain Jack, who might have been a poster boy for shagging everything that moves and which can consent, but was still told off and bossed around by the Doctor like a father, for all Jack's romantic overtures. Or Who X's last companion, Wilf, who had the deepest and most intense bonds with the Doc, despite the brief time they spent together.

This brings us neatly onto Rory, whose masculinity is as stiff as lettuce and whose macho credentials are less pronounced than his nursing degree. He's also Amy Pond's great unintended, even forced to dress up as her 'Raggedy Doctor' as the love of his life went ever more loopy. As mentioned in my interview of "The Eleventh Hour", Arthur Darvill brings a real wounded pathos to his poor sod character, right down to the timid, vulnerable body language. And in 'Vampires of Venice', last night's episode, we finally get to see him in action, so to speak.

In this one, the Doc - still reeling after Amy tried to have her wicked way with him on the night before her wedding - decides that only a romantic weekend in 16th Century Venice with Rory will save their marriage before it's even started. Of course, shit magnet that he (or the TARDIS) is, the Doctor beams them in to the middle of an infestation of vampires, or rather, Saturnynians: Blood-drinking fish monsters with mind-camouflage. I'm not making this shit up, you know.

So it's a bit of a shame that this episode was plainly written by Toby 'Being Human' Whithouse for Who X, Rose and Mickey, then dusted off and rewritten for this series. Apart from all the Tennantisms, Amy says and does a lot of Rose Tyler things (i.e., be a brave, gormless arsehole) and Rory is left doing what Mickey would have otherwise done (i.e., mope around a lot and shout at the Doctor.)

Meanwhile, the way Doc XI and Amy Pond jump up and down with joy or look excited whenever something bad happens is actually an old trope from the Doc X/Rose days, where they treated it all like a big laugh despite all the bloodletting. This was how the RTD era tried to justify punishing them for having too good a time (yes, he said this), which is a bit odd when you consider that they came across less as ghouls and more like how the audience itself was feeling. RTD himself seemed to hate the Doctor and delighted in making him miserable, which of course just kept getting in the way of the storytelling.

But when Matt Smith and Karen Gillan do it, the effect is more like two actors trying to play someone else, namely David Tennant and Billy Piper. Or perhaps two happy but delusional mental patients living in a shared dreamworld with Rory the nurse taking them out for a supervised trip to a museum. NOW THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN A PLOT TWIST

Poor old Rory, meanwhile, is reduced to saying Mickey's words, right down to the crybaby denunciation of the Doctor being a threat to everyone he knows, which is a bit like accusing the Fire Brigade of endangering lives every time it leaps into a burning building, or a surgeon being accused of being a potential mass-murderer because he works in a Casualty/ER ward. Isn't it the aliens and assorted baddies who were the killers and threats here, or did that get in the way of all the lazy RTD-era revisionism?

Things do get better as the episode develops though, not least because Whithouse's re-jigged script lets the team dynamic evolve away from its roots. Amy morphs from Who groupie to would-be menage a trois participant, the animus between Rory and the Doc giving way to an understated warmth and a very traditional love-hate relationship. Rory could be another classic male companion in the making here, if it wasn’t for the sinking feeling that they’re going to bugger it up like they always do.

Amy remains awful as usual, annoying and stupid in equal measure, and whereas last episode, you were rooting for the angels, now you're rooting for the vamps, who again fail miserably and let her live. On the other hand, it's not hard to cheer when the Doctor finally gives her a patriarchal bitch-slapping and tells her to fuck off back to the TARDIS. Not that she listens, of course. Oh nooooooo...

The story itself is rather bland. 'Venice', or rather Trogir in Croatia where this episode is filmed, is shot in a lifeless and sterile way, more a film set than a convincing setting, whilst the baddies' fortress is far too well-lit and tidy to bestow any real menace. In the end, it's all so clean and barren that you don't actually care what happens. There is no humanity here, beyond the three leads.

The vampire-fish are a wasted opportunity too. Less Lovecraftian Deep Ones and more crap CGI newts, their menace is badly handled and their human forms seem more like really bad Hammer depictions than the Gothic Horrors they should be. The faintly oedipal relationship between the Saturnynian Queen and her son is bodged too, neither character having much depth. And while the Queen's justifications for her plot to sink Venice below the waves are aimed at giving her a motivation, they only really make her sound like a delusional relativist loon.

Throw in a sub-plot with an expendable Venetian father and his equally expendable daughter (both of whom have even less personality than the Saturnynes), even more plot holes and ideas that are shamelessly and hamfistedly reused from other episodes and you have a bit of a disappointment. It's doubly disappointing coming from Toby Whithouse, who I - as a Being Human obsessive - can honestly say knows how to write when he can be arsed to. (Three words: REAL HUSTLE and HERRICK.)

Perhaps he needs a whole series to play with instead of just one episode? Whithouse does seem to do best when he has lots of episodes to play with, and fittingly it's the ongoing relationship between the Doc, Amy and Rory that's got the most life in it. In that sense it parallels Being Human - both are about two messed up, haunted men and one crazed woman, though Annie the Ghost is more 'needy' and Amy the Scots Racist is more 'hungry', so to speak.

Yet it works for the same reasons, the human drama giving some meaning that the SFX and expensive location doesn't. And who could dare slag off the glorious opening scene, where the Doctor emerges from a cake in place of a diabetic stripper and proceeds to bugger up Rory's stag night beyond all recognition? It's better to think what this episode could have been, then, than what it actually amounted to.

WHOPOINTS 6

Doctor Who, Series 5, Episode 5: Stone Angels Come To Bad End.

DOCTOR WHO
'The Time of Angels'
01/05/2010
BBC One

So, the last time we were here, the Doc, his future wife, his awful assistant and a fair few expendable church squaddies were going to get croaked by weeping angels... But then the Doctor did something crap and out of character (as in, use a gun). One Deus et Machina later and we find ourselves at Part Two, "Flesh and Bone"...

But first the opening titles, where - through the miracle of really bad CGI - the TARDIS churns through the time vortex. It really does look like a large blue turd flowing down the alimentary canal of an enormous suck-beast. The music's cack too.

As for the episode itself, it's more filler than thriller. It ties up of loose ends and preludes for the rest of this series' big story arc, with little thought given to the story beyond some new Moffat gimmicks, like pissing about with gravity or cyborg trees or oblivion through time-crack.

As for the cast, it is not a pretty sight. Riversong is less of a character here and more someone for the Doctor to shout at. Though at least Alex Kingston does her best with expressions and gestures where the decent dialogue is not forthcoming. The big revelation about her is - you guessed it - yet more build-up for the 'season finale' (Joss Whedon: you are a cock) and for the most part, she's underused and squandered.

The Doctor, or Matt Smith, is still regenerating, in the sense that he and the audience and indeed the scriptwriter haven't worked out if he's David Tennant, a new Doctor altogether or something that's getting bodged until they finally work out what to do with Who XI. Sometimes he thrashes about and yet shows signs of becoming of his own man or time lord or whatever. Other times, he just looks burdened, though the way he flirts with his future bride in a sort of sleazy but naff fashion suggests a dash of comic ability that echoes Troughton/Who II.

Meanwhile, Amy Pond still needs a slap. She is obnoxious, stupid, argumentative and unsympathetic to the point that you're rooting for Team Angel pretty much from the start. The character is fundamentally unlike-able, which is quite a departure from the traditional DW formula of companions who, you know, the audience is supposed to like. We also discover she's a potential Time Lord rapist who's willing to cheat on her man the night before their wedding. What a shit. But moreover, what an awful supporting character, seeing that she is so utterly unsympathetic.

As for the 'clerics' (which, if you don't remember, are the 51st Century church gone militant), their role is simply to die or otherwise get rubbed out. At least you mourned the marines in Aliens, of which this two-parter is ever so slightly indebted to, because there was something to mourn in the first place. But when the clerics' only differentiating trait is that they have funny ecclesiastical names, it seems shoddy writing is to blame.

The only cleric with a personality is Father Octavian. But it's a sort of passive aggressive sulk concluded with a highly improbable reconciliation between he and the Doctor just before Octavian gets his neck snapped by an angel. No disrespect here for Iain Glen, who does as well as most seasoned actors could with such shit characterisation and script. The blame falls squarely on the Moff's shoulders, an inadvertent tribute to those Old Who episodes where the Brigadier was portrayed as a total wanker and Nicholas Courtney just had to swallow it like his own vomit. In that sense, like the Father, Glen can sleep well in his bed at night: he was only following orders.

The episode overall, then, is a whimper. Even the main 'standout sequence' where a shut-eyed Amy has to navigate a forest full of angels is a wasted opportunity – it ends abruptly and has no real purpose. Perhaps Lawrence Miles is right after all - Nu Who is just a juxtaposition of set piece events linked by a lame script. But still - surely they wouldn't be so cynical about it? Well, actually they would, but at least some of the Old Who magic is there: note how one wall bends as the Doc leans on it? Yes, we're back in the era of wobbly sets! Rejoice!

WHOPOINTS 4

In the Brown Stuff - Part Deux.

You may have heard that Gordon Brown didn’t turn his mic off. What happened next and the response to it is, however, the real story.

After all, and whether you agree with Brown said or not, was this not a private conversation? All politicians have them and no doubt say all sorts of things the public would be shocked to hear, and yet we all can reasonably assume that things like this are said all the time. And what about the things we all say in private that are all too different from what we say in polite society? Double standards, anyone? Or is Brown's real crime that he got caught?

And while some may say that different rules should apply to politicians, this seems quite self-serving. One moment, we want our politicians to be like us, and the next minute we want them to be inhumanly perfect. We can't have both. Perhaps we need to stop seeing politics as a calling or a means to the Promised Land, or an epic battle between good 'n evil, but merely as a job full of conflicted, compromised, weak and silly people like us. And in a similar vein, so should politicians themselves.

But the real hypocrisy lies in the response to what Brown said. We demand candour and openness from our politicians and even avoid the ballot box because 'they're all as bad as each other'. Well, actually, they're not and such immoral and lazy thinking is the root cause of our political malaise, along with a dysfunctional relationship with politics itself. Do we really know what we want our MPs to do? It seems to change day by day.

And as ever, it is the voters who are the main villains here. If Gillian Duffy can say what she wants, then so should Brown. Yet we refuse to hear honest opinions if they clash with our preconceptions. This will have dire consequences. On the one hand, it has lead to spin, dishonesty, doublespeak and secrecy on the part of those who need our votes, which has lead in turn to corruption, embezzlement and indeed £1645 duck houses. We have to take a fair share of the blame for this.

But it is even more harmful than that. Whoever gets in next week will have to make cuts. Very big cuts. And so, a lot of enemies. Yet where is the honest debate? Where are the figures? The discussion? The bare facts? You won't get them because no sane politician is going to tell the truth to the public. We would rip them apart because they dared rouse us from our La-La-World retreat from reality. We all know it will come to pass but we're too spineless and stupid to face up to it. We then get the leaders we deserve.

I hate Brown, but I hate humbug and the 'have-cake-and-eat-it' mentality of the British body politic even more. Isn't it sad that Brown is done down, in the end, not for lies but for an honest opinion? And as I have said before, this story has only made the news because we have collectively decided he is a loser again. Never mind why Brown or Clegg or Cameron should be PM – why would anyone want to run a country with such a blind and pig-foul electorate in the first place?

Doctor Who, Series V, Episode IV: Stone Cold Tedium.

DOCTOR WHO
'The Time of Angels'
24/04/2010
BBC One

The day will come when ‘Whostorians" will note the weird parallels between Nu Who and New Labour. Both re-launched what were seen as naff, worn-out franchises, both to great success but at the cost of their original values. Both also saw a single figure raised to almost idolatrous heights – be it Tony Blair or Russell T. Davies – who then plummeted to earth when ego and hubris brought spectacular nemesis.

The pub bores will no doubt swill many a pint over David Tennant too. Charismatic, young and the object of almost hysterical devotion, he – like Blair – jumped before an over-rated Scotsman finally took over and ran everything into the ground. True, one can stretch the idea too far: unlike Blair, Tennant is still loved, and certainly deserves some if not all of that adulation. And it was RTD who wrote ‘Torchwood: Children of Earth’, as scathing a satire of the New Labour years as you could hope for.

But still, the parallels are… eerie. Not least because Peter Capaldi keeps turning up both in the Whoniverse and as a thinly veiled Alastair Campbell. Or how 70s feminista Sarah Jane Smith was reborn as a sort of Blair Babe, a mumsy authority figure who sacrificed a family life for a career and an unrequited love for a distant, Christ-like figure.

Even the rise and rise of Who producers BBC Cymru echoes the ascent of a more confident, more assertive post-devolution Wales. Meanwhile, the growing clamour of criticism for Stephen Moffat’s tenure as ‘Show Runner’ echoes the slow rot and decay of the post-1997 political settlement under Gordon Brown. Moffat also shows another Brownish trait. He simply can’t stop living off past glories, whether they be an end to Tory Boom ‘n Bust, ‘The Girl in the Fireplace’, pouring tons of money into public services, ‘The Empty Child’, throwing Nokias at people or ‘Blink’.

For what was last Saturday’s episode, "The Time of Angels", but a trawl through an ever-more tarnished legacy, at the cost of fresh ideas or anything to say? Moffat’s last outing – the two-part "Silence in the Library" and "Forest of the Dead – had all his tropes, tricks and eccentric plot devices, as well as recycled dialogue from previous Moff episodes. The net result was a bloated regurgitation of ideas that worked last time but now seemed worn and dated precisely because they relied so much on their own novelty.

This episode features two of Moffat's 'big ideas'. Namely: Mrs. Who, aka Professor Riversong. She's a sort of bastard lovechild of Elric (in that she’s FUCKING DOOMED) and Bernice Summerfield (in that she’s a bit foxy, likes digging things up and spends a lot of off-screen time with the Doctor). Only, this is the point where she hasn't become a Prof yet, is just out of jail and no doubt hasn't married the Doc either, as he keeps flitting in and out of her timeline in a random sort of way. (Not At All Like The Time Traveller's Wife or, indeed, The Girl In The Fireplace, you understand. Oh NOOOOOO...)

The other returning idea (or rehash of old glories if you wish) comes in the form of the Weeping Angels. For those who have not yet seen "Blink", they're those statues that come to life when you're not looking and steal your potential future from you. This time though, they are NEW AND IMPROVED, with the ability to spread through images, including televisions (Not At All Like The Ring!), and steal voices of their victims (Not At All Like The Vashta Narada!), not to mention being able to infect their victims like a sort of virus. (OK, that's quite original, I'll give him that...) Also, they now cut to the chase and just kill you. HOW'S THAT FOR INNOVATION???

There are some other original ideas here though. The concept of clergy-as-squaddies is rather good, not least because it doesn't go down the path of cyber-goth/Warhammer 40,000 pastiche. Yet the tensions between the Doctor and the 'Father' are just a retread of the equally pointless tensions between Richard E. Grant's Doc and Jim Norton's Major Kennet in "Scream of the Shalka", right down to the squabbling over a radio in an underground setting. The only difference being, of course, that you really don't care if the Father dies or not.

The Doctor also gets some decent dialogue too, for once, and starts sounding like a new Doctor rather than a David Tennant tribute. Still, that doesn't last long, and soon Matt Smith reverts to waving his sonic screwdriver about and doing Who 10's hyperactive ferret act. His 'look of surprise' when it's revealed the Angels are out and about is meant to be dramatic but is so overdone it comes across more as accidental self-parody that wouldn't look out of place in Garth Marenghi's Darkplace.

But the highlight is Alex Kingston's performance as Riversong. True, the way she summons the Doctor via a message from the (relative) past was done to death in Blink. But Kingston brings a real crackle and swagger to her cocky and knowing character. In doing so, she gives the episode a sort of depth and soul it otherwise lacks. And yes, there is even more unoriginality when she does a Lara Croft at one point. Yet she is also the most interesting character here because she is both the story's ambivalent protagonist and the one with the most going on under the surface. Her 'husband', meanwhile, seems like more of a cardboard cutout, following her lead and delivering lines that wouldn't be out of place in a bad action film.

Speaking of flat and insipid, Amy Pond remains awful. Her character development in this episode can be summed up as both obnoxious and slappable. But sadly, you know the Angels won't snuff her out, so instead teeth must be gritted as she stumbles around the place like a crap heckler or a particularly unsympathetic damsel in distress. Alas, the Doctor does not leave her to her death. That would have been fun. The rest of the cast may as well not be there.

All in all then we have one more shit-to-lukewarm episode on our hands. Ironically for a Moffat episode, it's the lack of originality that stands out. Beyond all the examples just given, it's plain that the episode's high-tech military force being picked off piecemeal by an extraterrestial foe (with a numerical advantage!) is pretty much Aliens for a teatime audience. And why did that chav twat from The Streets have to make a cameo at the start of the episode? Why oh why? It would have been more fun to see him get abused in a Turkish prison - now that would have been entertaining!

Still, there's always part two, which is next week and - if the preview is anything to go by - has Amy Pond still not getting killed and Matt Smith shouting a lot. Who knows? Who actually fucking cares?

WHOPOINTS 5

Doctor Who, Series V, Episode III: Half-Decent Episode Shocka!

DOCTOR WHO
'Victory of the Daleks'
17/04/2010
BBC One

One must admit to a bit of pre-empting here: Mark Gatiss' episode, "Victory of the Daleks" wasn't as shit as I feared it to be.

In fact, it was all rather good fun if you consider the whole 'Daleks & Churchill & Spitfires in Space'-type vibe. When it's breezing along like this, the episode comes alive mainly because it's having fun and so doesn't really have to deal with small matters like depth and pacing.

Because that is the real problem here: as one critic has already pointed out, the story feels like a two or four-parter Old Who jammed into 42 minutes with all that implies. It rushes along at a great speed and doesn't let the viewer digest each event before leaping on to the next.

The Daleks themselves do benefit from a nice set of touches though, like 'ironsides' painted up in WW2 khaki, and a willingness to make the tea, do filing and be killed because they're not 'dalek' enough. But it still feels more like a new toy line being launched rather than an old threat made new and scary once more. Boring old sods like me will also no doubt observe that their new luridly primary colour scheme echoes that of the 1960s Doctor Who films. At least they're not as 'emo' as the RTD era pepperpots-of-death. But still, there's too much emphasis on what they look like than what they do, which is what they're meant to be about.

Matt Smith's Doctor remains a work in progress. He’s still Tennant-ing at an alarming rate, whilst trying and failing to strike his own note. That said, the scene where he threatens the Daleks with a Jammy Dodger is inspired. Karen Gillan still comes across as Karen Gillan playing Karen Gillan - we don't feel for her character like we should. Yet the fact that she doesn't 'remember' the Daleks (despite their recent antics) is an interesting touch with many intriguing implications. So too is the way that this time the pair actually play an equal part in the resolution rather than one overshadowing the other. (As was the case in the last two benighted episodes.) This isn't ruined too much by yet more cringe-worthy dialogue between the two at the end of the episode (as was the case last week), which nonetheless suggests that the Moff-Beast, as story editor, is developing habits every bit as irritating as RTD’s.

Speaking of which, there is much symbolism here. RTD's era is symbolically blown away alongside with its take on the Daleks by new Daleks belonging very firmly to the Moffat era. Coincidence? Or some weird Oedipal shit that the Moff seems to be working out? Once again there's the 'Scottish' joke/obsession too, which rather makes one yearn for good old Terrance Dicks, who always had the courtesy to leave his hobbyhorses at home and away from the typewriter.

As for the rest of the cast, Ian McNeice's take on Winston Churchill seems alive and believable. While avoiding being that of a mere pastiche, it captures his heroic and human traits alongside the genuine darkness that at times surfaced both in the episode and in reality. The real moral of the story, that the ends do not justify the means (unless you are a Dalek/Nazi), is made all too clear through McNeice’s performance, his Churchill nearly, but not quite, entering seriously dodgy Faustian territory. This is only held back by his grasp on his humanity and his friendship for the Doctor, which is wonderfully depicted.

Bill Paterson's portrayal of Dr. Bracewell, who turns out to be the mere tool of the Daleks in more ways than one, is very effective too, despite how little the script gives him. His character's journey has a genuine poignancy and Paterson makes us feel for him. In a sense it's his character's story - a triumph of humanity vs. the soulless totalitarianism of the Daleks and the real life monsters they represent.

It's a mixed bag, then, that's true. But what stands out is how much fun it all is at times, a sort of gloriously absurd B-movie at teatime with some human drama thrown in for good measure. It's a bit of a shame that it's also trying to do too much with too little, and does feel like a toy commercial at points, but be honest - when's the last time you've had a bit of a laugh with a Dalek episode anyway?


WHOPOINTS 7

Doctor Who, Series V, Episode II: Epic Fail (Whale).

DOCTOR WHO
'The Beast Below'
10/04/2010
BBC One

So the second episode of the Moffat era is here. But is it any better than the lukewarm "11th Hour"? At least it leaps straight into the action, as Who XI and rather mad new companion Amy Pond find themselves on Starship UK. This constitutes the fag-end of Great Britain, carrying what's left of the UK to safety after Solar Flares make the Earth a bit crispy. (Which ties it in nicely with the existing Who chronology, if you remember "The Ark In Space".)

Once there they discover it to be a grim place indeed. Children weep silently, as sinister mechanical overseers called 'smilers' discipline and punish. For there are a few seriously nasty secrets here, not least a Queen whose memory keeps getting wiped. And then there’s a charming scene where the Doc & Amy get caught up in a tidal wave of vomit. Yes, it's wholesome entertainment all round as the Doctor is forced to consider giving someone a quick lobotomy. Yay.

The episode lacks teeth. Both leads (Matt Smith and Karen Gillan) still seem smug and complacent. It’s like they've not quite realised that there’s more to it than just passing the sodding audition. On the other hand, Smith actually tries to de-Tennant the Doc in this one, albeit in a way that suggests Moffat really, REALLY wanted Martin Clunes instead. But the effort seems wasted as he still lapses into Tennant-esque impotent rage for the most part.

In terms of all those de rigeur high concept Moffat ideas, The Smilers are too pretentious to be really scary. But the novel use of glasses full of water placed on the floor (to reveal... well that would be telling) is a great touch. Meanwhile, the conflicts between Doc & Amy are surprisingly free of RTD's old rancour and misery. The truly clever part of the story is where Amy revolts against the Doctor because, paradoxically, she understands he is right.

On the other hand, while the resolution to the 'unresolvable' dilemma is a sound one, it all seems far too hurried and rushed, like a four part Old Who serial jammed into 42 minutes. And while the resolution also means that Amy Pond gets something to do, the Doctor is reduced to a bit player as a result. This somehow doesn't seem right, not least when you consider that the best Doctor-Companion solutions to cosmic problems have always involved equal or at least substantial contributions from both sides. It's always been a show about the poor sods taken along for the ride, but it's never been called Doctor Who for nothing either. In this sense, Moffat gets the balance wrong, perhaps being too keen to establish Amy at the cost of the dynamics between her and the Doc himself.

And of course, some of the dialogue is pretty cheesy, in fact, almost ST: OS-like in levels of pure Stilton. Some of it is painful to remember, let alone quote without cringing.

But the real problem is that the core conceit of the episode - that Starship UK is built on top of a massive Space Whale - is either a blatant rip-off or may as well be. The Space Whale, a benign intergalactic cetacean enslaved and used as a transport sounds eerily like the Acanti, of Marvel Comics fame, who just so happen to also be... benign intergalactic cetaceans enslaved and used as transports. Going back to the Star Trek angle, the Space Whale's secretly maternal and cuddly nature, combined with its ruthless exploitation by ghastly humans, sounds eerily like the Horta from "The Devil in the Dark" episode, so much so that you have to wonder what is really original about this story.

After all, a feisty redhead companion? We've already had Donna Noble. Angry conflicted Doctor wondering why he puts so much effort into protecting all those human bastards? Who III was doing that 40 years ago. Thinly veiled satire on British society? "The Happiness Patrol" wants an apology for all the shit hurled at it over the intervening 23 years.

It doesn't help that Starship UK doesn't seem particularly believable. This is not because of the swish CGI effects, but precisely because it feels like a collection of clichés, Union Jack Kitsch and bric-a-brac on a soundstage rather than a living, breathing place or collection of places, like that hinted at masterfully in "The End of the World". (Which, incidentally, still comes out looking good in comparison after half a decade). That was itself the second episode in a new series with a new Doctor, where the companion's first trip is in the far future, and so, of course, even that's unoriginal, right down to the penultimate shot where Doc and Companion stare wistfully into space after the mayhem is resolved. In that sense, this is less drama and more repetition without end, and doesn't bode well for the rest of the season.

Still, we get to see what Mark Gatiss does to Winston Churchill and the Daleks next week. What could possibly go wrong? Answers on a postcard to...

WHOPOINTS 5/10