Menu Close

Tag: Nu-Who

The Ugly Docling

2 Comments

Review of Doctor Who: The Movie (Special Edition)

DVD Release Date: 08 Feb 11
Original Air Date: 14 May 96 (US)
Doctor/Companion:   Eight, Dr. Grace Holloway
Stars:  Paul McGann, Daphne Ashbrook
Preceding Story:  Survival (Seven, Ace) – 1989
Succeeding Story:  Rose (Nine, Rose Tyler) – 2005
Notable Aspects:

  • Only televised story to include the Eighth Doctor
  • Doctor’s first on-screen kiss
  • Bridge between Classic and Nu-Who
  • DVD:  First North American video release

There are those who think The Movie is one of the worst crimes ever committed against the Whoniverse.  I am not among them.  Despite some notably bad features, I actually really enjoy it.  Not the least of my reasons is that it’s the one and only on-screen appearance of Paul McGann as the Doctor.

The made-for-tv Movie came about (in its final form) as a “back-door pilot” for a potential series re-launch.  It was to be set in the US and aimed at the US market, so the tone was somewhat “Americanized.”  Among other things, it added a splash of romance (much to the horror of Old Skool Whovians), a “car” chase, and an actual American Companion (as opposed to Peri – played by Nicola Bryant, a Brit).  Not all of it worked, but there’s a reason McGann continues to this day to get work as Eight in audio-dramas and other projects:  he makes a brilliant Doctor.

Read more →

Confession #3: I Might Like Matt Smith Better Than David Tennant

Blasphemy!  Heresy!  Buuuuuurn heeeeeer!

OK, that’s probably overstating the reaction a bit, but I may well be ostracized at my own get-together after this one.  The Ladies of WhoFest are firm Tennantites, so admitting my Smithian leanings is sure to engender some antagonism, or at the very least disdain. I can’t deny it any more, though.  I think Eleven has surpassed Ten for me in terms of watchability.

Don’t get me wrong – Ten is my Doctor.  I fell in love with him (yeah, I mean it that way – how Mary Sue of me; and yes, I wept like a pregnant lady during The End of Time…), and through him learned to love all the Doctors, each in their own way.  But there’s something a bit off-putting about The Lonely God after a while.  While I loved the Saddest Doctor when he was in a manic phase – oh, that smile… – I got tired of him getting screwed (metaphorically, and – depending on how you interpret a few things – literally) all the time.  The guy couldn’t catch a break.  Given how RTD chose to write his story arc, I have to say it was probably time for Ten to regenerate; I mean, how much lower could he go?

Perhaps it will come as no surprise, then, when I say that what I’ve come to love most about Eleven is the return of his joie de vivre.  Sure, the pain is still lurking there in his eyes when someone forcibly reminds him of it, but for the most part, he can put it out of his mind the way anyone who’s lost a loved one learns to do (or, as Two put it in Tomb of the Cybermen, “I have to really want to – to bring them back in front of my eyes. The rest of the time they… they sleep in my mind, and I forget.”).  But overall, Eleven gives off a kid-in-a-candy-store vibe, like he hardly knows where to begin because it’s all so fabulous – sort of like Ten’s breathy “that’s beautiful!” upon first seeing the werewolf in Tooth and Claw, except all the time. New regeneration, new companion(s), new outlook; in a sense everything that Ten was really did die.  And while part of me misses him, another larger part just doesn’t have the time, because watching Eleven is too damn much fun.

Read more →

A Dickens of a Good Time

Review of A Christmas Carol

Try as I might, I cannot find a way to make “Christmassy-wistmassy” sound good in a sentence.  But how else do you accurately describe the action in A Christmas Carol, which is simultaneously about as timey-wimey as we’ve seen and also unrelentingly inspired by the holiday season (and, more specifically, by its namesake)?  After a somewhat shaky start (“Christmas is canceled!”? What kind of rubbish line is that?), the episode turns rollicksome and barely pauses for breath.  Little details made me smile before the story really even began.  I mean, how can you not love Amy & Rory’s discomfiture at being caught with their barely-metaphorical pants down?  And after all that happened last series, it’s brilliant finally to see Arthur Darvill’s name in the credits.

From the title down, the whole episode is deliberately Dickensian – the Doctor himself makes a conscious decision to mimic the story when his answer to Amy’s query changes from “a Christmas carol” to “A Christmas Carol”.  Thus it’s no surprise right off to hear Kazran’s rant (“I call it expecting something for nothing!”) so closely echo Scrooge’s complaint that Christmas is “a poor excuse for picking a man’s pocket every twenty-fifth of December!”  It’s almost like a game to find as many references as you can, though perhaps it would be wise to stop before you started counting every little quasi-Victorian detail on the set.

While I’m on the topic of minutiae, I may as well mention the Doctor’s new jacket; his fabulous entrance; and the way he continues to be as frenetic as ever, delivering viciously funny lines that are all too easy to miss while you’re still laughing at the last one.  (A few of those – like the whole bit about the face spider – feel like something Moffat couldn’t bear to leave on his Wonderfully Scary Ideas clipboard despite the fact they wouldn’t support a stand-alone episode.)

Read more →