Thursday, July 22, 2010

DOCTOR WHO--PART 9

So, when last we left off, Doctor Who had been resurrected for one movie that, as it turned out wasn't very good. That opportunity missed, things went back to where they had been after the original series had been canceled--lots of tie-in books radio dramas, etc. and it looked like the chances of a return to TV (or films, which they spent the 90s trying to do again) seemed utterly remote.

Enter Russel T. Davies. Davies had recently come off of Queer As Folk, Second Coming and a few other projects and had the clout to do whatever he wanted, and as it happened, what he wanted to do more than anything was revive Doctor Who, and in 2005--nearly 15 years since the TV series ended and ten since the TV movie--he got his chance, bolstered quite a lot by the fact that the BBC was actually willing to spend some money on it this time.

For all I would disagree with Davies' approach as his tenure wore on, he had the perfect approach to bring this back, summed up in a quote excerpted here and one I mentioned in a previous post:

"But the people who loved the original series [of Doctor Who] when they were young are now in their 40s, and I’m not remotely interested in making a show just for them. That would be tragic. It’s too good an idea to be pigeonholed away with that small of a demographic . . . If they’d wanted a cult "Doctor Who" for the cult audience, I would have made that. I equally know how to do that. And when the BBC first asked me to bring back "Doctor Who," the first thing I did was make sure it wasn’t for a nostalgic cult audience, and it was going to be for everyone. "

In a perfect world, the pack of nabobs who create supehero comics at the moment would have that quote tattooed on the inside of their god damned eyelids.

Anyways, this was going to be a fresh start, that would use the history of the series but not demand that you knew the ins and outs of Doctor Who's history. Davies approach was to make the story more about following the Companion, Rose Tyler--we would meet the Doctor at the outset and be our entry point into the world of Doctor Who and gently introduce everything people loved about the series.

To draw a line under things, but to keep things handy to be brought back later, Davies came up with the Time War, a handy little deck-clearing exercise that was designed to sweep away things which had really never worked all that well (the Time Lords, for one, and good bloody riddance) and keep everything else on the table until the time was right--the reasoning being once they liked the show, then Davies could start building continuity taken from the past without having to painfully footnote how we got from 1989 (or 1996) to the present.

So the Ninth Doctor appears on the scene, and he's rather different from most the previous Doctors, and not just because he's not wearing a costume, or because he's seen at a certain distance, but because he's a lot edgier than Doctors have been. He's cranky and shows little patience for stupid humans, but also shows great affection for humans who show the will to be a bit more than they are, and it's his only his interaction with Rose that ultimately begins to soften him and gradually, over the 13 episodes he did, he gradually becomes the Doctor we all know and love.

Along the way we get some great episodes (most of which were written by folks who cut their teeth on the Doctor Who novels of the Nineties--"Dalek," "Father's Day," "The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances" 2-parter) and some not-so-great ones (The ones with the Farting Aliens are really rather silly, as it's impossible to take them seriously as a threat--as almost parodies of the standard Doctor Who monsters, but even then, we didn't need three of them) but on the whole, it was a very strong season, and just what was needed to get the program back on its feet, and it become one of the most-watched programs on British TV. After a decade and change, Doctor Who was back, and back in a way that people who'd seen the original's slow decay could possibly imagine.

But things being what they are, even in the best of times, there's upheaval. Ultimately, the Ninth Doctor lasted one season, the actor involved deciding he had better things to do, I guess. Ordinarily, this would be the kiss of death for a show just finding its feet, but what was to come with the advent of the Tenth Doctor was the moment Doctor Who's resurrection completes itself and captures the imagination of two coasts and I can think of no better teaser for it than "it was the best of times and the worst of times." Join us, won't you?

14 comments:

Diana Kingston-Gabai said...

Now that you mention it, I think Eccleston's final episode was the very first example of RTD's tendency to unspool his own work like Penelope on amphetamines - after a moderately moving episode about the very last Dalek survivor consigning itself to oblivion... voila, they're back. And it's not like I object to challenging the whole trope of "clean-sweep genocide" (especially when it comes to spacefaring races - how could you guarantee that you'd wiped every last one of them out?), but as far as I know the Doctor was utterly convinced that he'd wiped them all out. Which makes their repeated comebacks all the more ridiculous.

Diana Kingston-Gabai said...

Also: this season introduced Captain Jack Harkness. Not sure I can ever forgive them for that. :)

Kazekage said...

Yeah, the writing was on the wall from the beginning, and in all honesty, every time we got to the Big Finale, tit either felt a little too familiar, or just got so ridiculously out of hand that you couldn't take anything seriously. You could, of course, say that as time travelers, the Daleks are difficult to eradicate entirely, but it's more likely that RTD is just a damn sloppy writer.

Captain Jack . . .you know, I'm sure John Barrowman is a nice guy. He certainly seems so, and I would like nothing more than to see him in a buddy cop movie with Brian Blessed and Tom Baker. But whenever I see Captain Jack and his smug half-grin I just want to . . .punch him as hard as I can.

Diana Kingston-Gabai said...

Now, see, that's a rather clever solution - the Daleks are time-travelers, so there are potentially dozens of groups floating around like an invisible minefield in the timestream. Fair enough. But as far as I know, no canonical excuse was ever given for how they keep coming back: they just do. And it seems like the sort of thing you'd want to explain after the first, second or third Complete Eradication, doesn't it?

Indeed. And then I start wondering if Jack is supposed to be unbearable, in which John Barrowman is a very good actor, or if he's meant to be sympathetic and Barrowman can't tone down his own obnoxiousness long enough to get that point across...

Kazekage said...

Well, lip service is paid to how they came back every time--at first, a wounded ship hid near Earth, harvesting humans to make more Daleks, then a group of Daleks hid out the Time War, then one of those Daleks broke the lock on the Time War to get Davros back. In the new series, one ship survived, barely, but it led to a Xanatos Gambit on their part that actually made some sense.

The problem you have is the "They're destroyed FOREVER" part of it, because then you have to walk it back the very next time, which cheapens the catharsis of the previous run-through. The Daleks perhaps work best as the implacable enemy that's always out there and can never entirely be eradicated, like minefields in the timestream (I like that metaphor!)

Well, River Song is just as obnoxious (she is Captain Jack with boobs, seriously), so it must be a intentional character trait. I would hope with all charity what they're going for is the Han Solo-esque "lovable smartass rogue." Unfortunately, either the writing fails them or the actors aren't up to conveying the good person underneath the sarcasm because they come off as unbearably smug assholes.

Diana Kingston-Gabai said...

That's exactly it: having them pop up from time to time and evade utter extinction is all well and good, provided your protagonist doesn't keep assuring us that yes, this time they're really gone for good. It makes the Doctor look like a complete imbecile each time they come back.

Hard to say - I haven't seen either John Barrowman or Alex Kingston elsewhere to make a fair evaluation of their talent (or lack thereof). I do have my doubts, though, that Barrowman might not be as talented as he seems to think he is...

Kazekage said...

That's why the Eleventh Doctor's first Dalek episode was so good--they completely outmaneuvered him and escaped without all of them having to be destroyed--they Just Won this round, and now they're back and when the time comes we need not do any plot gyrations to justify it.

I dunno . . .I think I would actually like Barrowman if I saw him in the right thing, but "action hero" . . .he's just not credible at it. Well, maybe Hunter Rose. ;)

Or, given there's been talk of it in the air recently, I wonder how good a Judge Dredd he'd be. My money's on hilarious.

Diana Kingston-Gabai said...

That certainly goes a long way towards restoring a measure of credibility, especially since they've suffered one Total Genocide after another in recent years...

Apparently he tried for serial killer on "Desperate Housewives". U-Decide. :)

Now I'm imagining him reading Sylvester Stallone's lines. There is no LOL icon grand enough to adequately capture how much the thought amuses me. :)

Kazekage said...

Well, you can only job your bad guys out so often before they lose any and all intimidation factor--hell the old series pretty much ruined the Cybermen for all time because they came off as crap in all but one serial in recent history.

It's either not that far a cry from that show that's on BBC where he's shooting rainbows out of his hands or whatever or not. I'm not quite sure. Barrowman is both queer and and engima. ;)

My God Diana, I think this could work in fact, as a new meme I think we should try to ask "How many Sylvester Stallone movies would work if you dropped Barrowman into Sly's role?" For one thing Rhinestone is far less gay than it was originally . . .

Diana Kingston-Gabai said...

I've always found them to be less intimidating than, say, the Borg, who pulled off the same concept with a more subtle menace.

You forgot "fabulous". :)

And people who hate Jack Harkness (last count: EVERYONE) would flock to watch his face get pounded into pulp by Ivan Drago... my God, I think we're onto something! :)

Kazekage said...

Well, the Borg are at least done on the right scale--they're this massive, implacable thing which will roll over you.The Cybermen haven't had that kind of menace in awhile (though in the last series, there was a genuinely scary moment with a single Cyberman at the end of the last series) although, really they should, as their tagline "You belong to us. You will become like us" is certainly pregnant with menace. If only people hadn't spent so many years jobbing them out in favour of the Daleks . . .

I can't properly lisp whilst typing. ;)

"Ianto . . .whatever you do . . .don't throw in the towel."

Diana Kingston-Gabai said...

The Borg also had the advantage of an extremely disturbing visual design, where enough facial features were left over that you could still see them as people. The Cybermen just looked silly.

And now the $64,000,000 question: who would play John Barrowman's mother in "Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot"? :)

Kazekage said...

Well, the Cybermen--when done right--are appropriately creepy with their impassive, vacant, mass-produced faces, but they're not as immediately disturbing as the Borg, really. :) Few things are as creepy as zombies with bits of wires poking out.

Mollie Sugden? ;)

Diana Kingston-Gabai said...

I would've picked Dame Edna. :)