Doctor Who, Series 5, Episode 13: The Big Whimper.

DOCTOR WHO
"The Big Bang”
26/06/2010
BBC One

So thirteen weeks of mostly disappointment later, and what do we have? Well, the Doc’s stuck in the Pandorica, Amy is ‘mostly dead’, Rory is rather upset (and plastic), almost the entire universe has ceased to exist, and the younger Amy is getting mailshots from a weird bloke in a Fez. Riversong, meanwhile, is caught up in a time loop and the TARDIS is about to blow up. So far so good.

But really, this is less a story and more an array of narrative tricks used to distract the viewer from a truly shabby script. The time paradoxes (where characters leap in and out of narrative order via Riversong’s magic wand – err, I mean, time bracelet) were done to death in “Blink” and for that matter Back to the Future II. (it’s sad to realise how much Nu Who is dependent on ‘homages’ to Hollywood movies.)

Old Who never quite got into this too much and that's for a good reason - it's too convoluted and it also sucks in terms of good narrative and structure. The show learned quickly to focus on characters and events rather than naff gimmicks.

The rest of the episode is that most loathsome of writerly cop-outs: The reset button, which, no matter how show leader Stephen Moffat wants to dress it up, is what this episode’s central conceit is, and which exposes most starkly the decline of the show after only five years of its second wind. Indeed, when it’s not trying to be Buffy The Vampire Slayer or Babylon 5, the show is now also trying to be Dragonball Z with its sheer repetitive, lazy reliance on deaths that mean nothing and worn-out formats.

Once past the cheesy happy-ending (truly sick-bucket territory and far too tidy and convenient), you then realise that what you’ve seen is not a resolution to the previous story arc but simply a preluding to yet another story arc that's just like the others and will be every bit as disappointing. There is something profoundly cynical about this, like what you are watching is pretty irrelevant, but WHAT MATTERS is that oft-promised and never-delivered extravaganza just around the corner. We cannot enjoy the show as it is but what it might possibly, perhaps, probably give us in the future. This is no longer a show in its own right but an advertisement for another show that, as we now all know, will never get made. It says a lot when all the speculation on the Web is much more satisfying than the real thing when it was finally delivered.

So how about this, Moff? Why not just tell a story instead of always setting up the next one? Or guerilla marketing where bullshit is leaked to the web so everyone is disappointed with the final article? Don't promise. Just do. And no, it's never been a fucking fairy story either. Good sci-fi needs to take itself a bit seriously after all. Maybe then we'll get stories that don't keep relying on poxy Deus ex Machina, even ones that get vaguely hinted at over 13 episodes in a sort of titanic arse-covering exercise. Or relying on novelty, leaving aside there being a new Doctor. But then that would mean facing up to the show’s many shortcomings: Its obsession with celebrity, its shallowness, its weak scripts and its cardboard characters and settings.

As for the cast, well – let’s just say I haven’t changed my mind on Karen Gillan. Yes, I have spent 13 weeks raining shit on a hapless 22-year-old actress but it's just the character is so fucking horrible, and Gillan's performance just revs it up to the max. It doesn’t say much that Amelia Pond (the eight-year-old one, as played by Gillan’s cousin, Caitlin Blackwood) is much more likeable than the grown up one, but then it’s a strange fact that little girls are often far more dynamic and interesting than young women, if not as interesting as old men.

Speaking of old men, Who XI finally starts making sense in this one, Matt Smith somehow fitting into the role at last, even if he’s still Tennanting from time to time. He may well be remembered as the Doctor with the most teething troubles, but he finally brings a unique character and bearing to the role. And as an aside, what with Old Who costume designer Barbara Kidd rejoining the fold, it may be time to do the unthinkable – AND GIVE MATT A HAT. Namely a fez, which suits him.

Also strong, as to be expected, is the interplay between the Doctor and Amy’s poor-sod fiancée (and later husband) Rory, care of the series’ big find, Arthur Darville. There are some excellent scenes between the two, with a chemistry that’s impressive to see. It’s also a father-son relationship; an old, conflicted and haunted Doctor trying to guide and protect an angry, resentful and hurt Rory, still finding his own identity and sense of manhood. And it is here, rather than all the over-amped Amy sub-plotting, that the real heart of the show can be found.

Also, suffice to say, Alex Kingston continues to deliver the goods as Riversong. (Yes, I know it’s actually ‘River Song’, but it looks better if you write it as one word.) Her lines are silly, her role too much like a lame pastiche of a superhero or space opera Mary Sue, and the ongoing ‘who the bloody hell is she?’ foreplay is getting rather tedious now. But Kingston makes the role come alive and even be worthwhile, if only when she’s not being used as yet another way of foreshadowing another vast future disappointment. She is also Moff’s answer to RTD’s Captain Jack, the character he’d love to write a series about, if it weren’t for that pesky Doctor they have to write for instead.

And so they produce cobblers like ‘The Big Bang’, almost out of spite. Cast notwithstanding, it was lazy and shallow. This is no longer storytelling; it's just setting up a 'spectacular' that everyone's already seen five times before. Strangely enough, it all seems rather repetitive now. Even RTD could write better than this load of old shit.

So, thirteen weeks later, what do we have to show for it? One genuinely good episode, one genuinely entertaining one and one passable one (Smartie/M&M-coloured Daleks notwithstanding). The rest, an awful disappointment. The kool-aid sippin’, easily impressed and poorly discriminating public have already eaten it up, perhaps in desperation as deep down they must know the Emperor is stark bollock naked. But what we’ve really had here is a series as bad if not worse as Who in its mid-to-late 80s nadir, and once the hive mind lets go of its delusion, it’s hard to see how this series has any future at all.

WHOPOINTS 5

Doctor Who, Series 5, Episode 12: The World Ends (Sort Of).

DOCTOR WHO
"The Pandorica Opens”
19/06/2010
BBC One

The main problem with the new Dr. Who format is that it keeps sticking to the same formula. Namely, a season finale that’s set up throughout the series, loads of big hints, fanboys frothing at the mouth on that hotbed of Autism called the Web, and then a loud, bombastic, gormless power creep marathon at the end that never quite delivers.

True, ‘The End of Time’ sort of dodged that one, but only because it featured DAVID FUCKING TENNANT regenerating – which isn’t a common event as a rule. Otherwise, it’s been exactly the same narrative each and every time, and five years later, it’s looking rather worn out.

But like a porn freak, Nu Who keeps chasing that original thrill (which was rather lame and depressing the first time), always missing the target because there never was one to hit in the first place.

Series 5’s damp squib, “The Pandorica Opens” (followed, as with all the other damp squibs with an even damper, squibier episode which bodges everything the week after) is a case in point. We find out what’s really behind those cracks, all those questions are (mostly) answered and the subsititution of Special FX in place of story proceeds ever onwards.

Here, all the Doctor’s old enemies unite to shove him in the Pandorica, which turns out to be a giant prison cell, because they think he’s going to bugger up the universe. What this means in practice is that the cash-strapped show has plundered its storerooms for all its old (but not too old) costumes and mixed in a few expensive new Daleks and Chris Ryan (a welcome return, as it happens) pretending to be a Sontaran again. Even the Autons resurface, one of which performs the dual public service of returning Rory to the show (sort of) and killing the Pond-beast (yay!) all in one fell swoop.

It’s unconvincing, just a big set up for an ‘event’ (and some pointless horse riding) that lacks any real human depth or character. The story is shoddy. It’s incredibly lazy, and full of a sort of sterile conservatism that rivals the show’s nadir in the 80s. But never mind! Here’s some big bangs! Whooshing space ships! Loud orchestral music! This is what happens when British TV tries to ape Hollywood – an unconvincing pastiche that veers dangerously close to the nightmare scenario:Turkish Cinema.

There are good bits. Arthur Darvill, it’s good to see you back – and well done on bringing some real humanity to this mess. (And Chris Ryan, oh how we missed you and your roaring fascist ET Napoleon schtick! Keep getting cloned – you are a Sontaran after all!) Matt Smith is sounding desperately like he’s almost cracked it, give or take some lapses into uncharacteristic set-piece posturing, and the Troughton is strong in him too, with a Tomb of the Cybermen-esque pep talk to Amy. Yes, River Song returns, but the other edge to that sword is that at least we get Alex Kingston back, and she’s too good for this load of old arse, frankly.

Amy Pond? You finally rejoice when the Rory-Auton zaps her dead, as she is so annoying, obnoxious and slappable at this point, you rather hope it’s her who’s going into the magic box. The ongoing campaign to repurpose the show as ‘Doctor Douchebag’ continues too, the episode continuing to make the Doc look less like a protagonist but more of a twat, and even a villain, or at least a fool, when Matt Smith isn’t allowed to portray him as – y’know – the main character.

Perhaps a good summary of what’s wrong with this episode is encapsulated in the clash between Amy and a Cyberman. Firstly, it makes no sense – if the machine parts of a Cyberman can operate autonomously, then why do they need a human component? Also, how is Amy able to ward it off with a flaming torch and how is the Rory-Auton able to kill it with a Gladius, seeing that Cybermen are bulletproof (as a rule)? Secondly, there is the power creep again – apparently Cyberman heads can sprout tentacles and fire poison darts and their arms can fire independently. It’s not as bad as the invincincible flying munchkin Daleks of death, but it’s getting close. And finally, it is unbelievable – why would they not spot a dismembered Cyberman lying all over Stonehenge (and underneath it) in the first place?

This, plus a ‘reveal’ that suggests that the main conceit of the series is going to be rather infantile and quite literally a ‘fairy tale’, suggests a show that doesn’t respect itself or its audience that much. This is a rather depressing thought – that not only is such a show treated like children’s TV but that ‘children’s TV’ is shorthand for crap.

WHOPOINTS 3

Doctor Who, Series 5, Episode 11: The Eleventh Doctor's Eleventh Episode.

DOCTOR WHO
"The Lodger”
12/06/2010
BBC One

James Corden may have peaked too early. The first time I saw him was on a Tango ad, where his house was invaded by swarms of red-head men and he was driven to madness as they broke his spirit. It was great comedy. The next time I saw him was in 2002's Cruise of the Gods, where he played - fittingly - a fanboy of a naff 80s sci-fi series, all too painfully aware of his own ironies, whilst also deeply in love with a show with heart as well as tack. Sound familiar? It was plainly Davison and (Colin) Baker-era Who, with a dash of Blake's 7 and a hint of the obscure kids' TV sci-fi show Captain Zep. He showed a lot of promise, bringing together a studied wit with a real vulnerability.

Then he peaked too soon with the overrated Gavin & Stacey as Gavin's bff, Smithy. Neither as inspired as some claim, nor likely to be remembered, it typecast him as the archetypical fat oaf, a role he still plays now on TV with his own James Corden's World Cup. And then there are disasters like Horne & Corden or the bleeding awful Lesbian Vampire Killers. Nothing fucks you over like early success, and yet as his rather sparkling performance in the TV adaption of 'The Gruffalo' (!!!) shows, he can still bring vim and vigour to his performances, when he's allowed to.

So is his role as straight man to Who 11 in 'The Lodger' a disaster or a renaissance? The bad news is that he's still playing a fat oaf, but the good news is that he brings some of that old humanity to the role, and makes us sympathise with his character Craig Owens, a loser-in-the-making, marking time at a dead end job and making eyes at his best friend and unrequited love Sophie (Daisy Haggard) while sinking into a fast-food-and-lager stasis. True, Corden is playing to type, but on the other hand, it's nice to have a lardy performer who neither apologises nor really cares about what you think re: his waistline, and Corden also puts in an entertaining, engaging and funny performance. He's still got it, after all!

Alas, there is also a nasty neighbour upstairs who keeps luring people into its lair and isn't letting them out, and a nasty black mould is spreading on the ceiling. Then a tall, lanky weirdo in a bow tie turns up at the door offering to rent out the spare room, cash in hand... And then hilarity ensues.

In many ways, then, this episode has a lot in common with 'zom-com' classic Shaun of the Dead. Both have a lovable loser whose dead end life is transformed by strange events and who ends up with the woman he loves because, and not despite, of the mayhem that ensues.

The main difference here is that it's Shaun's disgruntled girlfriend who makes the biggest journey in SoD, learning to accept Shaun for what he is rather than what she thinks he ought to be (the line 'At least you tried' can be read on many levels). Here, though, the loser's own failings, mediocrity and lack of courage is the focus, as the Doctor casually exposes Craig's every social, professional and intellectual flaw.

What is refreshing here, though, is that Craig benefits from this by finally accepting that he needs to admit his love for Sophie, and so allow his life to proceed. The Doctor is the catylist he needs rather than a threat to his manhood, despite how it may appear at points.

In previous Nu Who series, after all, the Doctor's challenging of the status quo is often portrayed as a Bad Thing. (Why Jackie Tyler's lumpenprole 'know your place' mentality was never really dealt with is just one of the show's many intellectual and moral failings. Donna Noble's mother also needed a proper bitch-slapping.) Here, though, the Doctor is more of a fairy god-doctor, which is perhaps how he should be portrayed - he is meant, after all, to be a force for good.

In any case, and as said, Corden does a good job of portraying a man who is, as the episode puts it, turning into his sofa, making his sloth and small-mindedness clear, while keeping him sympathetic nonetheless. Haggard's portrayal of Daisy is seamless too, her love for Craig contrasted with her urge to live a life beyond pizza, beer and call centres via a nimble balancing act from the performer.

Matt Smith's progress, meanwhile, continues ever onwards. He's still not sounding 'old' enough but he has the eccentricity nailed down and the episode cleverly takes him away from the TARDIS and too much Sonic Screwdriving, making him do what the Doctor should be doing - making it up on the spot and relying on his resourcefulness rather than a magic wand. Away from the ghastly Amy Pond, he also gets to work as a character in his own right and be, well, the star of the show. He can talk to cats and make sensors out of rotary clotheslines! He mindmelds by head-butting you! He can play football! He can act like an alien and really confuse Craig's friends! And his ability to see time out of synch, last seen way back in 'The Eleventh Hour', returns in this episode too, again to great effect, and in a way that makes you wish they'd used it more.

It's almost like this episode is a reminder of what a Who episode can be like without the bullshit. Even the aforementioned Pond-Beast is kept well away from the action, stuck on an unstable TARDIS, and only popping in now and then to remind us of what a total arse she is. The script is strong and well-written, with a villain that is original and not strictly speaking monstrous - merely ruthless, calculating and amoral. The only problem is when the story tries to do too much in too little time (a recurring problem with Nu Who as previous reviews have noted). But the episode also has a good structure, is fun to watch and is genuinely entertaining - if only it were part of the majority and not the minority in this ill-fated series! And if only the new TARDIS set looked as good as that of the alien ship, but that's another rant altogether...

WHOPOINTS 8

Doctor Who, Series 5, Episode 10: Van Gogh and the Disabled Space Chicken of Death.

DOCTOR WHO
"Vincent and the Doctor”
05/06/2010
BBC One

(Yes, I know this one is late. Stop whingeing.)

How the hell did this script ever get off the ground? I'm not talking about the quality of the end product here. But you have to admit that the episode pitch must have been a sight to behold: "Yeah, well Vincent van Gogh meets the Doctor and they end up fighting a killer space dinosaur-chicken. Hilarity ensues!" On the other hand, connections always help, and since it was Richard 'I've written loads of comedies, me!' Curtis who wrote this script, he could probably have got away with an episode wherein the Doctor travels back in time and eats dog shit with Divine.

For those unfamiliar with his work, Curtis is a sentimentalist of the worst kind, as seen by his buying into the mawkish, fatalistic and rather 2-D folk memory of World War One in the disappointing 'Blackadder Goes Forth', or the worst excesses in overrated rom-coms like Love Actually or 'Four Weddings...'. Don't even get me started on the historical liberties he took with 'The Boat That Rocked' or the Soma-and-Victory-Gin-sodden distortion of British life in shit like Notting Hill and Bridget Jones' Diary. He is the epitome of British luvvie culture - a hack with a lazy reliance on cheap schmaltz and a complacent view of the world echoed by his click-step behind the bien pensant and the banally liberal.

His script is fittingly uneven, then, with a flat and shallow story line and little beyond the three leads (and Bill Nighy, here playing a bow-tie loving art historians) to fill the episode with any real human emotion or meaning. This draws attention to the main test that the episode fails: When its main conceit is so silly, it had better damn well have some depth to it. But "Vincent & The Doctor" just doesn't - it makes no use of van Gogh's world beyond using it as a source of victims to be killed and angry mobs to throw stones.

Worse still, the alien is awful. other than having that fake CGI look, it also looks like an enormous plucked turkey. While not as bad as the oversized Vespid in 'The Lion & The Wasp', or as embarrassing as - well, 60% of all Who monsters, c. 1963-2010, if we're being honest - it still hints at CGI for its own sake. Whereas, the fact that it can only at first be seen by van Gogh (or the Doctor, if he's using the right equipment) should have been the case for the whole episode, the creature remaining invisible to the viewer and so remaining enigmatic. That would, however, have required giving the audience the benefit of the doubt and not indulging Nu Who's over reliance on special FX, so of course, we got a naff killer Bernard Matthews' instead.

Matt Smith puts in a better performance, continuing to become ever more his own Doctor. The only question is whether he can do this in time to justify both his own long-term place in the series, and indeed the future of that series. Certainly, as gratuitous archive shots of William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton show, the show is desperate to place Who XI into the canon through association, as if it feels like it has to overcompensate, which is rather worrying. Karen Gillan is blahblahblah etcetera, etcetera, crap but shows a flicker of depth when she is confronted by the mortality of her favourite painter. (As per usual, she turns out of the blue to be a van Gogh groupie, in that make-it-up-as-you-go-along Nu Who way.)

Tony Curran's Vincent van Gogh is good stuff and shows a lot of effort, but plainly lacks the time and space to be a fully developed performance. You can't really jam van Gogh into 45 minutes with a TARDIS and a space monster and properly explore the character - there isn't the room, but at least Curran does what he can. Again, the lack of length to many Nu Who episodes turns out to be something of an Achilles’ Heel. And the episode's doubling up as a tribute to Van Gogh isn't always that good. The gushing sentimentality that takes place when Vincent is taken to 2010 and an exhibition of his own works is truly vomit inducing. The only redeeming moment is when the trip proves less lifesaving than Amy hopes, van Gogh's fate still etched in stone, or rather onto the canvas with those striking, primal colours. At last, a harsh reality creeps in.

For the good parts, when they are there, are very strong indeed. The clever set design, which recreates the many settings for Van Gogh's paintings, stands out and even serves as an effective plot device. While the scene where the evening sky is transformed into 'Starry Night' is actually a sight to behold, inspiring and rousing, and one of only a very, very few highlights in what has been a worn-out and disappointing series. And then there are the little touches: The fact that the TARDIS translates Dutch into Scottish English or the pointed comment from the Doctor that he uses the Sonic Screwdriver too much hint at a script that is more than willing to admit its own ironies. Van Gogh's musing that the monster isn't that much different from the dumb villagers who fear and harass him is a genuinely sad moment.

And the Doctor's closing speech, that life can and must be a combination of both the good and the bad and that one doesn't always overshadow the other, has a maturity the show hasn't had in years, nay decades. Curtis is, then, more like RTD than Moffat - he can very occasionally do good things when he's not entangled in his own tropes or writing cheesy dialogue for floppy haired twats like Hugh Grant. Still, it could have been better, which is pretty much the case for the rest of this benighted species, but at least it isn't as bad as some of the lamer episodes.

WHOPOINTS 6

Doctor Who, Series 5, Episode 9: Squeaky Bum Time.

DOCTOR WHO

"Cold Blood”

29/05/2010

BBC One

Whilst previous Who two-parters tended to start out well, or at least not totally crap (or in "The Time of Angels'" case just plain crap), they tend to then flop badly in the next episode. (Or get really crap in "Flesh & Stone".)

"Cold Blood", the second episode in Series 5's re-launch of the Silurians, bucks this trend by following a shit episode with an average episode. Yes, it's that impressive.

The good parts are, your intrepid (Wh)Ovine can report, surprisingly many. The character interactions are well written and performed, and the 'are we any better?' debate (wherein the viewer is asked to ponder whether humans are the worst monsters) is effectively handled too. Here both sides of the argument are put across, but the final word, care of the Doctor, leaves no doubt on the real message. Humanity has to learn to be a better species. Throw in some subtle digs at Malthusianism and racism and you have a surprisingly moral episode, for even if the present sees an opportunity wasted, a better future is predicted in a blatant no-tension-really sort of way.

Of course, there's a lot here that is a wasted opportunity. Silurian Elder Eldane (as played by Stephen 'Marvin The Android' Moore) is brought in clumsily and not enough is made of him. Likewise with last episode's vivisector Malokeh (Richard Hope), whose Miyazaki-style change of heart is a bit disjointed and his character wasted. Celeb guest star Meera Syal has very little to do that Amy Pond couldn't have done on her own, and while Neve McIntosh's warrior Silurian Alaya affects a Iago-worthy forked tongue and a rather scary death wish, her sister (also played by McIntosh) is simply a vengeance-crazed cardboard cut-out.

And no, it isn't a patch on 'Doctor Who & The Silurians'. Overall, it lacks consistency and is badly paced, even rushed. The subtleties of the original are 40 years' away from the sledgehammer approach of today and the introduction of Amy's Crack (fnarr!) is equally as heavy handed and blatant. It took six 30-minute episodes to tell a story that unfolded organically in 1970. 40 years later, it takes two hyperactive toddler episodes at 45 minutes each to just churn out a slapdash narrative. Let's hear it for progress.

Matt Smith does of course make some progress of his own in this one, beginning to ease into the role, even though he's still talking like Who X, and doesn't actually do very much again. Arthur Darvill's Rory remains hapless yet also displays a dignified and heroic side that's well performed. And while he snuffs it and then gets erased from history (as usual with Nu Who, it's the Doc's fault), you just know he's not gone for good - the character just works so well and has certainly earned his place on the TARDIS. Amy Pond/Karen Gillan? Eek. But she does show some depth FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER when her character loses Rory, then forgets him with equal poignance after he's been rubbed out. (It's that naughty Crack of hers again, I tell you.)

It could have been better, but avoided being worse. That's pretty good going by this series' standards.

WHOPOINTS 6

Doctor Who, Series 5, Episode 8: Hungry A**e.

DOCTOR WHO
‘The Hungry Earth”
22/05/2010
BBC One

"Doctor Who & The Silurians" is one of the classics of the old series, an epic Shakespearean tragedy where the real monster is not in the form of the Silurians themselves - ancient subterranean reptile men from Earth's past - but hubris, pride, stupidity, fear and bigotry, of which all sides, the Doctor and the Brigadier included, are guilty.

Forty years later, and the Silurian comeback "The Hungry Earth", part one of a two part serial, has quite a task on its hands to follow up on that one. So it doesn't bother. Instead it just reuses plot ideas from "...Silurians" and loads of other Old Who stories. Drilling into something awful? Inferno. A church and a forcefield? The Daemons. Welsh setting with loveable boyos in peril? The Green Death. The only way they could have made it any more derivative was if they caught Liz Shaw in the Tardis reversing the polarity with a giant maggot.

The ethical dilemma at the heart of "...Silurians", as to whether we are any better than them or perhaps worse, has meanwhile been buggered up. This time, to spare you the tedious details, it is hamfistedly executed, with the inevitable fuck-up that makes us all ashamed to be human slotted in for next week but telegraphed so loudly you can pretty much guess how it will turn out.

The characters are pretty cardboard too, with the Doctor and Rory scripted to operate as if on autopilot, right down to the already overused 'HOW COULD YOU NOT SAVE HIM/HER?' routine. Speaking of clichés, the episode also maintains the 'Doctor Is Christ/Doctor Is A Wanker' binary opposition, with no nuance or subtlety in-between. The Doctor we saw in "...Silurians" was a much more well realised Time Lord.

Amy Pond remains fucking annoying, as per usual, and the episode seems to toy with the viewer when it seems she's going to get dissected next week. (She won't of course.) But her growing lack of interest in what the Doctor does suggest some character development, if not all that much.

The worst character is the boy, whose Dad gets suctioned down into the bowels of the earth at the start of the episode. Now, please do not see that as a slur on the young actor playing him. It's just that there's something incredibly depressing about the underlying notion of a character whose only real purpose is to be precocious, then run off and get in trouble and, to top it all off, suffer from a disability-du-jour, which in this case is dyslexia. Britain, if you really want to help dyslexics, don't patronise them with token sufferers being bullshitted by Matt Smith. Actually invest in their education, stop discriminating against them and actually put some effort in assisting them in their day to day lives. But of course, this is a mainstream TV show made in Britain c. 2010 we're talking about here, so the feel-bad-but-in-reality-do-fuck-all consensus rules supreme.

Did I mention that the New Model Silurians are shite? They don't look like the old Silurians, and instead go for a generic reptilian humanoid look of the sort that Star Trek at its least imaginative might use. The makeup didn't look like a reptilian humanoid so much as an actress in reptilian makeup, which might sound obvious, but there is a clear difference between the two, in the same way that a bloke in a cheap made-in-China gorilla suit doesn't look like Chewbacca.

Throw in a plot full of holes and inconsistencies, and which often just marks time until the second episode's preamble is set up, and then mix firmly with infantile, flat characterisation. Voila! You have this episode. Fittingly, it was written by Christopher Chibnall, responsible for some of the worst Torchwood episodes ever (and that's saying something). Perhaps he took Stephen Moffat at his word and wrote the script for 11-year-olds, but that rather insults 11-year-olds, doesn't it? Last week's episode, 'Amy's Choice', was indeed a fluke, because we are back to Business As Usual: Poor scripts and shallow narratives, produced and performed in a slapdash and inconsequential way.

WHOPOINTS 4

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