Doctor Who: Journey's End

At some point the Season Four finale of Doctor Who, “Journey’s End,” will stand on its own, but many involved in the zeitgeist of the series currently recall the week building up to its transmission on BBC1. The close of “The Stolen Earth” saw several cliffhangers, but none more powerful and mysterious than David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor regenerating. What the hell was going on? As Steven Cooper wrote to me in an e-mail: “… you have to admire RTD's skill in engineering the biggest Doctor Who cliffhanger ever seen, that generated an absolute avalanche of publicity in the UK. No matter how many times rationality insisted that David Tennant had already been seen filming the Christmas special and that there was just no way a new Doctor could be kept secret, for that whole week little paranoid doubts kept creeping in.” There’s no better way to put it. Was a new Doctor mere moments away?

Read the rest of this recap/commentary for the finale of Doctor Who's fourth season by clicking here to visit The House Next Door.

Class Reunion

“The Stolen Earth” is a wonderful and sometimes frustrating episode. Wonderful because it skillfully brings together not only all three of the series in the Russell T. Davies Whoniverse, but also numerous other elements from his four seasons of Doctor Who. It also truly kicks off the big finish of Season Four and ends with a big ol’ insane cliffhanger. It’s maybe frustrating for all the same reasons, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a hell of a lot of fun.

The story begins immediately where “Turn Left” ended. The TARDIS materializes on Earth and the Doctor (David Tennant) and Donna (Catherine Tate) are expecting disaster. But instead, all is perfectly calm; indeed, it’s a Saturday. Regardless, the Doctor remains unnerved by Donna’s meeting Rose, which indicates to him that if she can travel from one parallel world to another, then the walls of the universe are breaking down. (If only he’d seen her earlier in the season!) They head back to the TARDIS and no sooner do the doors close then strange things begin happening on the Earth. The TARDIS interior shakes and the Doctor runs to the door, swings it open and before you can say Han Solo, the planet’s gone. The TARDIS hovers in the empty space where the Earth once was.

To read the rest of the recap for the penultimate episode of Season Four, click here to visit The House Next Door.

With or Without You

Since I was away from my desk this week, Steven Cooper ably filled in for me on the Doctor Who recap.

Each year the rigors of the production schedule require the Doctor Who team to film two episodes simultaneously. Previously, this resulted in both the Doctor and his companion being largely absent from one episode (“Love & Monsters” in Season Two, “Blink” in Season Three). This year, showrunner Russell T. Davies took a different approach, deciding to have separate “Donna-light” and “Doctor-light” episodes. So while David Tennant was spending a week-and-a-half confined to a single set in “Midnight,” Catherine Tate was out filming this sprawling epic, which takes its impetus from a simple question: What if Donna had never met the Doctor?

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Molto Bene

In addition to overseeing the seasonal story arcs, Russell T. Davies writes more scripts for Doctor Who than anyone else, and he does it every year. He has mostly provided crowd-pleasing tales, but he’s occasionally gone off the beaten path and given us something deeper to chew on, such as “Love & Monsters” and “Boom Town.” I once wrote that Davies could “pen an entire episode with just the Doctor and Rose sitting in the TARDIS talking to each other, and it’d be one of the highlights of a given Doctor Who season.” With “Midnight” he comes as close to that supposition as could probably be hoped for at this point. It may well be his finest Who achievement yet. “Midnight” sees Davies throwing caution to the wind and showing uncomfortable truths about the Doctor, as well as about humanity. “Midnight” isn’t necessarily a complex story, but it is a daring and disturbing one that for perhaps the first time in the new series is aimed squarely at adults, and doesn’t bother to take younger viewers into account—although maybe it acknowledges that kids are growing up along with the series and maybe they’re ready for more challenging fare.

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Computer Crash

“Forest of the Dead” is an episode that left me so thoroughly perplexed that I had to see it several times to even begin thinking I understood it. I can honestly say that no installment of the new series (or even classic Who for that matter) confused me as much as this one and if that earns me the nickname “Thick as a Whale Omelet Ruediger,” then so be it. I asked for some help from fellow Who/Moffat enthusiasts Steven Cooper, Peet Gelderblom and Chris Hansen, three people whom I figured could help me get to the bottom of it all. They did help, were full of insights and opinions and their words are as important to recap as anything I’ve got to say. Yet another viewing helped, too, and I’m starting to believe the story is either not as complex as I’d originally thought, or it’s so obtuse that I’m never truly going to see the bigger picture.

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Spoilers!

The name Steven Moffat has been the stamp of quality on Doctor Who scripts over the past three seasons, so it’s easy to go into “Silence in the Library,” the first of a two-part story, with high expectations. Further, since Moffat was recently named the series’ new showrunner (beginning in 2010), viewer expectations are perhaps even a bit higher for this story. He certainly doesn’t waste any time putting his dramatic flourishes on the piece. The story begins with a little girl (Eve Newton). She appears to be in therapy with a Dr. Moon (Colin Salmon) while her dad (Mark Dexter) lingers in the background. In her mind exists a fantastical library the size of a planet. She peacefully floats around the silent library, seemingly the only patron. The silence is suddenly broken by a loud banging from the other side of a pair of doors. The girl is alarmed. The Doctor (David Tennant) and Donna (Catherine Tate) bust through.

The Doctor: “Hello! Sorry to burst in on you like this. Is it OK if we stop here for a bit?”

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Standard British Birds and Bees

I’m sure I read an interview with Russell T. Davies some time ago where he referred to “The Unicorn and The Wasp” as “the first comedy we’ve done.” I put that in quotes because that’s what I recall him saying, but I’ll be damned if I can find the piece now. It probably doesn’t matter, but it does seem the aim of the episode is to be a comedy—well, a comedy and a murder mystery peppered with ample doses of sci-fantasy. The episode worked better on the second viewing, yet I still couldn’t shake the feeling that I’m beginning to tire of this brand of Doctor Who story. I’ve got plenty of respect for Agatha Christie’s body of work, but I’ve never read any of her books—pathetic, but true. I grew up reading Doctor Who novelizations written by Terrance Dicks—also pathetic, but true.

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Hell Hath No Fury Like a Daughter Cloned

As a title, “The Doctor’s Daughter” conjures up exciting possibilities, but as an episode it leaves the viewer wanting more. Is it surprising that the daughter in question is in no way “long lost” or any other sort of melodrama? Not really. Anything more concrete would be a massive intrusion on the overall narrative, and taking both fact and rumor into account, this season probably doesn't need another such element. Instead she’s an instant genetic descendant of the Time Lord—created in the first minutes of the tale. It’s a disorienting moment, too, because it’s so unbelievable, even by Doctor Who standards. The Doctor (David Tennant), Donna (Catherine Tate), and Martha (Freema Agyeman) arrive in some sort of underground bunker. Within moments of stepping out of the TARDIS, a group of young soldiers appear out of nowhere, grab the Doctor, and thrust his hand into some sort of machine. The Doctor deduces it’s taking a tissue sample. Seconds later, two doors slide apart and out steps a beautiful blond girl, dressed like Farscape’s Aeryn Sun.

Martha: “Where did she come from?”

The Doctor: “From me.”

Donna: “From you? How? Who is she??”

The Doctor: “She’s…well…she’s my daughter.”

The Girl: (smiling) “Hello Dad!”

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I don't want to set the world on fire...

In the comments section for “The Sontaran Stratagem,” Joan wondered why at the close of the episode “…no one thought to break the window of the car while Gramps was asphyxiating.” And so “The Poison Sky” begins with Donna’s mother, Sylvia, doing just that. It’s a huge anticlimax for the cliffhanger, but I would argue that the whole point of a cliffhanger is in the hang, not in the resolution in the next episode. Cliffhanger resolutions almost by their very nature are destined to suck, because if our heroes succumbed to the disastrous situations they’re left in, there would be no more show. We always want the resolve to be as thrilling as the minutes that preceded it in the narrative, but there’s a big difference in the first couple minutes of an episode, and the final moments of another. And there’s no point in delivering the best you’ve got at the start, right?

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Mr. Potato Head

"Sontarans are great… I think that's partly because they come from a very specific world. That back story gives them a great context. Robert Holmes didn’t just create a race, back in the 1970s: he created a world that they came from. Even if you never saw that planet, you understood why they did what they did." — David Tennant, Doctor Who Magazine #395

I hate to contradict our Time Lord and Savior, but he’s ever so slightly off in his close. It’s not that we ever understood why the Sontarans did what they did, but rather that Holmes’ vision of the race was so clear that we accepted what they did without question—and that was make war (not love). The “why” could make for a good story someday, but at present their reintroduction is plenty.

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The Ood Abides

“Planet of the Ood” is a really strange episode (and yes—I had to restrain myself from describing it as odd). I don’t know if anyone was exactly crying out for more Ood, but since they played second fiddle to the Beast in “The Impossible Planet” two-parter, they’re a logical choice to revisit, as we didn’t get to know all that much about them. What we did learn about them is explored in greater detail here and it’s nice to see that they remain benign creatures so long as outside parties don’t abuse them through ulterior motives.

A Booming Commercial Voiceover: “The Ood! They came from a distant world. They voyaged across the stars. All with one purpose…”

The picture zooms into an Ood holding a cup of tea.

Ood: “Do you take milk and sugar?”

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Everybody Must Get Stoned

“The Fires of Pompeii” tinkers with a spot in the season where similar installments have been little more than clever dives into pseudohistory. Don’t get me wrong, “Fires” is by no means an accurate account of what went down when Mount Vesuvius erupted, but since the populace of Pompeii went along for the tragic ride, the episode manages to cover its ass. It features no historic figure (i.e. Dickens, Queen Victoria or Shakespeare); instead, the event itself is the figure. It also hints at events to come, further develops the new Doctor/companion relationship, and features effects work that’s outta this world.

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A Slim New You

After more or less trashing “Voyage of the Damned” last week, it’d be all too easy to start a trend by picking apart Season Four’s first proper episode, “Partners in Crime.” The series has followed a predictable pattern with its season openers. They’re romps that acquaint (or reacquaint) the lead characters. The antagonist threat seems mild in comparison to typical Doctor dilemmas. There’s always an emphasis on humor, some mild social commentary, loads of running around and an easily resolved finale. “Partners in Crime” does adhere to the formula, but last week I stated “…Who should, at the very least, recycle the old into something vaguely new.” Where “Partners” succeeds is in its mild tweaking of the norm. If the season continues playing with established formula (which I’ll try to address in the coming weeks), then it could end up the best batch of episodes yet.

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Damned Doctor

The chefs in the Doctor Who kitchen get more technically ambitious with each new season, and the annual Christmas specials are appetizers dished up to satiate diners between the seasonal main courses. “Voyage of the Damned” is first and foremost a spectacle echoing the infamous disaster movies of the sixties and seventies (especially The Poseidon Adventure). Clocking in at 72 minutes, it’s the longest single episode of the new series yet. It also snagged 13.31 million viewers upon its Christmas day BBC broadcast – one of the highest figures in Who history and the largest audience for the new series so far. (I believe the number translates into something like 50% of the TVs in Britain being tuned in.) Clearly Doctor Who isn’t losing any steam as far as the general public goes, but aside from all the flashy effects, frenetic pacing and high profile guest stars, is “Voyage of the Damned” any good?

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