Entry 17: Episode Review: Doctor Who (Series 7, Episode 1)

Tonight is a big night for nerds and small children everywhere. Why? Well, the only facet of art that can possibly unite these two demographics, science fiction, is celebrating the return of one of its TV darlings, Doctor Who. After becoming a British icon in its original run from 1963-1989, the show returned in 2005, to great critical and public acclaim that it has retained through to this very day, where it enters its 7th series, with Asylum of the Daleks, with the masterful Stephen Moffat at the helm, The Doctor has inspired countless spin-offs, books have been published,  bands have been formed for the sole purpose of penning songs about the Who universe, even pissing childrens magazines are in circulation. So what is it about Doctor Who that makes it such a powerhouse? Why do so many people watch this show? Questions need answers.


Shame I don't have any. Doctor Who is definitely a show of two halves. There are undeniable strengths to the show. Doctor Who, is undeniably iconic. Along with the Doctor himself, in his various incarnations, the T.A.R.D.I.S phone box, and some of the more memorable companions, the show has more flagships than the Royal Flotilla. Doctor Who had a bit of everything, matching B-movie sci-fi with moments of quiet and tenderness. The script was particularly well written. The show knew what it was, and never took itself too seriously. The villains were memorable and effective, with the crackling shrillness of the Daleks and the marching severity of the Cybermen. All of this was rounded off perfectly with a quintessentially English eccentricity, and a certain quirky sense of humour. Doctor Who can frighten as much as it can excite and entertain. Calling it a ‘drama’ is probably a bit short-sighted, but that is beside the point. Doctor Who, on a fundamental basis, is solid, big budget entertainment.


You can sense a ‘but’ coming, can’t you? Yes, there is a ‘but’. See the problem is while the script is pitch perfect and the characters are memorable and the tone is appropriate, you would also be hard pressed to watch a show that comprises so much nonsensical bullshit as an episode of Doctor Who. More or less, every episode starts with a problem, which is usually solved fairly gracelessly in the final few minutes of the episode. The Doctor is less a time lord and more some intergalactic cowboy builder, pinging about the galaxy in his phone box, fixing problems with ease, but, like any good cowboy builder, spending excessive time fannying about beforehand. It gets fairly jading after a point. And it changes little from Doctor to Doctor. In fact I find the Doctor himself to be the most annoying part of the whole show. With David Tennant, you could count on one thing. By the final few minutes, he would be dashing about, his eyes popping like boiled eggs, fiddling with various dials and levers, whilst reeling off some convoluted spiel about how rebooting the carbonator or, slicing the cheese a little thinner or hyper-initialising the space-ping-pong-continuum would somehow mend the situation, whilst his companions could do nothing but sputter and get in the way like the drooling schmucks they are. Matt Smith continued the 15-year-old-on-Blue-Bolt method employed by his predecessor, except this time he couldn’t make it through a scene without being condescending to someone; his tone resembles that of a care home worker, shaking his head and sighing ‘what are you like?’ to his patients as they poop and dribble All Bran down their cardigans.


Furthermore the show is desperately lacking the sort of polish and gloss it would surely receive if it were released on one of the big US networks. Of course, it would probably lose a lot of its charm if it was more of a corporate job, but still. Special effects on a budget is one of the foundations of Doctor Who, which you have to respect I suppose, and the costumes and set design, both excellent, do almost make up for this lacuna. But the CGI on this show is just piss-poor; some of the space scenes make Birdemic look like a visionary masterpiece.


And then there is the plot. The writing is good; very good. The script is always fun and full of creative zest, but it is the overlying story that can verge into incomprehensibility. Plot-holes are abundant, and more often than not (in keeping with the whole cowboy builder outlook) these plot-holes are messily plastered over with some vague reference to, yes, time travel. Doctor Who is at its strongest when the plot is contained within the episode, beginning and ending more or less independent of the rest of the series, with the exception of two or three-parters. But it is when the story arcs become so tediously extravagant and complicated that it would take a UN peace envoy three weeks to patiently unpick it, that things get hairy. There are times you just have to surrender any attempt to understand or seek out logical chains of causality in these things and just presume the script writers know what they are doing. This crap is supposed to be kid-friendly, and besides it’s on at seven on a Saturday night for Christ’s sake, no one is expecting Requiem For A Dream.


This latest episode feels like a step forward, and then a step backward. The Daleks return, again, and, it must be said, it may be time to get some new figurehead baddies to come to the show. They are stretching the Daleks to their very limits. The more situations we see them in the more absurd they seem. The Daleks are little goblin-come-aliens who are in their clunking pepper-shaker suit at all times, right. So we wonder how exactly the Daleks constructed their suits in the first place? Or, the space ship parliament we are shown in this opening episode? How did they all float in there and arrange themselves facing inwards? Wouldn’t that be a logistical disaster for such awkward machines? Yes grand space-operas tend to be plot-hole ridden, but there is something rather trying about the series’ insistence on re-using the Daleks. However, there are some fresh twists at play. This time the Daleks need the Doctor to actually help them; “Well, this is new” quips Smith. Quite. It is a fairly unexpected turn for the show and a welcome one too. Not so welcome are the quasi-human Daleks we get, blokes with big glue-glowing phalluses sticking out of their foreheads. That is just rather silly. We also learn large explosives can kill Daleks pretty well, which, considering we have seen army types in previous series fail miserably at doing any such Dalek killing, seems a bit, surprising.


Matt Smith is as we remember him. He waltzes about with the kind of anti-swagger reserved for Bruce Forsyth on The Generation Game, trash talking Daleks and doing jazz hands by himself whilst repeating the title of the show, for reasons that I am still not 100% on. Again he seems to perpetually know what to do, like some neurotic Captain America with two hearts, barking orders to his flimsy companions who spend a fair amount of time debating who loves the other more, for the purposes of holding off Dalekification. Now that’s heartfelt. We meet a new character, the spunky Osmin, a dainty little thing in a cocktail dress and matching red trainers (or so we think) who adds a bit of punch to proceedings. There are more than a few twists and turns, as well as some interesting and inspired moments, but ultimately this opener feels a little stunted, a little same-same, and dare I say it, a little tired. And I can’t say I will be tuning in to witness the BBC’s attempts to generate passable dinosaurs in next weeks, hilariously titled, Dinosaurs On A Spaceship.


So, a new start for the titan of British tele, but not a fresh start. There does not seem to be much progression from the previous series to this current episode, and you wonder, just how long they can continue doing this sort of thing. Doctor Who has certainly had some incredible moments. The Weeping Angels were inspired, the story between Emily Pond and The Doctor was fresh and inventive, the meetings with John Simms, The Master, were dark and brilliant. And then there was the oldest series of the new generation, under Christopher Eccleson, who remains to this day the most likeable of the Doctors.  There are plenty of great moments from the past, moments that stay with me vividly even though I never pretended to be a big fan of the show. But something has to be done by Moffat and Co. Maybe some much needed grit and traction could be added to the show, or perhaps the ceaseless pace could be lessened a little, or the rigid ‘problem-solution’ format could be redrafted. Anyway, Doctor Who is back with a new series. Next week, Dinosaurs On A Spaceship. Better go make plans in advance.