Doctor Pepper

Or, What's The Worst That Could Happen?

In the wake (entirely appropriate word choice, I feel) of Saturday's The Doctor's Daughter, I had a horrible idea. Some friends felt Jenny was a sure indication of another spin-off somewhere down the line. Whereas, my current theory on how this will all pan out, which is entirely wild speculation based only on what we know so far and thus not at all spoilerish, is:

Come end of series, they're going to do the unthinkable and kill the Doctor off, Jenny will step into his shoes, possibly inheriting the TARDIS (and I only throw that bit in because I recall that line about her being the reason the TARDIS went there), and we'll have a 'female Doctor' for a bit (possibly for the three planned specials?), but then after David Tennant's had his much-needed break, they'll regenerate the Doctor from his spare hand to which they keep returning our attention lest we've forgotten it.

Apologies to those who've read this before - sadistically, I posted it in a comment on Stuart's blog. But inspired by that, and because I'm having to amuse myself between arduous edits on an arduous project, I thought I'd invite other wild theories here to outdo the sheer horribleness of my own. So, as I said up top, What's the worst that could happen?

Your only prize is the, er, satisfaction of being right by the season finale. But if your theory is that horrible, clearly your satisfaction will be as limited as mine when the time comes!

Miss Congenealogy

Georgia Moffett was pretty, wasn't she? The Doctor's Daughter, But Not Really might have been a more accurate title and the whole thing really wasn't helped by the fact that this potentially fascinating story was played against a scenario from the Ladybird Book Of Science Fiction Plots. If you want some idea of the shortfall between promise and realisation, you need only look to some of the comments that, along with the rest of us, looked forward to the episode:

"Out on the fansites, they're guessing aliens will pinch the Doctor's DNA. But that sounds too prosaic, and not enough to justify the hyperbole of a writer who saw part of the episode and calls it "one of the single most audacious moments in Doctor Who's 45-year-history... cheeky, hilarious and brave".

and from Rusty himself:

"Yes, that's the title. And it does exactly what it says on the tin!"

And then compare with what we got. But that's the way a con works: they razzle dazzle you, then slip you a cheap imitation. In much the same way the Ood somehow got the impression the Doctor was a great hero who saved their world, in much the same way this Hath-Human colony is told to found their new society on The Man Who Never Would - when in fact he's The Man Who Most Assuredly Would, As Long As It Was With Some Device Or Method He Could Safely Claim Wasn't A Gun Even Though It Was Just As Deadly And As Often As Not Twice As Cruel. They sell you a lie.

There were some nice touches, there were. But as soon as Jenny showed up, I don't know about you, but we were expecting the Doctor to reject her, then bond with her, then watch her snuff it by episode end. But, probably, she would regenerate - most likely, I thought, after he'd departed, believing her to be dead. Which should serve to illustrate how many surprises the episode had in store for us.

It did surprise me in some small measure that Martha could, at the same time, be such a spectacularly brilliant doctor that she could deliver the prognosis on Jenny - "no regeneration, no hope" - at a glance, while being such a spectacularly bad doctor that she a) didn't even try to save her and b) got it completely wrong. Likewise, it was of some passing surprise that Martha could understand the Fishmen, and no doubt we'll be told by supportive fans that the TARDIS was translating for her, but if so why couldn't we hear the translation as we normally do? But these questions, like most of the rest of it, were of no consequence.

Perhaps this one was really just about steering us into further spin-off territory, or maybe to that most ultimate of conclusions, the killing off of the Doctor and his replacement by this non-daughter, and Doctor Who finally gets to be more like Buffy with a fraction of the wit and ingenuity. To be honest, Jenny has a lot more charm on her side than her old man so would have that going for her. But I'm afraid I rather suspect she was right, when she launched herself off in that shuttle, and that, whatever comes of this, it will involve "lots of running around". The apple never falls very far from the tree, so basically expect more of the same.

Indifference Engine

Well, I said I'd post my thoughts on the Doctor Who Sontaran two-parter once both parts were in, but now that we come to it, I find motivation fading fast. But I'm persuaded I'll have forgotten much of the thing by tomorrow, so I'd best pass some sort of comment now.
It wasn't bad, it wasn't terrible. It was better than Helen Raynor's previous old monster two-part extravaganza. But that, of course, is about as faint as praise gets before it turns altogether invisible and, with the exception of a few select moments, it left me much like a parked car, in neutral.
So, I guess I'll just wrap this up with a quick game of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly:
Good: Mike from The Young Ones as a potato-head, some nice emotional stuff between Donna and Grandpa Cribbins, UNIT making good by end of business and kicking Sontaran butt, the investigative journalist at the beginning who reminded me of Sarah Jane Smith because she was an investigative journalist.
Bad: the Sontaran second-in-command who decided not to act at all and stick with his standard toff persona, the useless but ultimately self-sacrificing prat from the League Of Less Than Extraordinary Geeks, baked-potato aliens in a half-baked plot.
Ugly: the Sontaran chant, the Doctor being such a prick in the first episode and continuing to be a bit of one in the second.
In the end though the copper was more excited than I was.

Non-Probic Vent

It being the first of a two-parter, I'm being fair and reserving comment on The Sontaran Stratagem until I've seen the second episode. When I do comment it'll only be one of my mini-reviews anyway, but in the meantime, pardon me while I have a mini-rant.

Now, I realise nostalgia must play a factor, but I do have fond memories of the relationship between the Doctor and the Brigadier and despite the fact that they were at loggerheads - the scientific versus the military mind - their friendship was a special one. And here we were with the Doctor reunited with UNIT and what I'm seeing played out between David Tennant's Doctor and this brand new UNIT Colonel actually makes me angry.

It's curious and disheartening that New Who rarely provokes anything like such an active response from me - usually it leaves me pretty much in neutral. But when I think of the opportunities in terms of painting a rounded, convincing military character and establishing relations between him and the Doctor, what we got was, if you'll excuse the pun, Major Disappointment.

Poor enough that he's portrayed as a spineless non-entity who obligingly salutes Donna Nobody on demand, far far worse that the Doctor insists he doesn't want the man standing next to him because he's *wearing* a gun. The man hadn't even been given a chance to be a *character* let alone a bit of a bastard, which might at least have earned him the snub. But no, this was entirely based on the fact that the man was in the military and completely disregards the Doctor's previous regard for the Brigadier. This from the Doctor who metes out cruel and unusual punishments on aliens who happen to piss him off, who's just recently caused the deaths of 20,000 people in an effort to save the world and preserve the course of history (and who, but for Donna, wouldn't even have saved a single Roman family), and who wields his sonic screwdriver *like a gun*.

This Doctor is apparently being painted as a Lonely God. And, in case any further evidence were needed, now we have an explanation for the 'Lonely' part. And frankly, I'd grown to dislike the man already, but this was the point where I'd really had enough of him. So, any kids out there whose father happens to be an officer in the military, don't worry, it doesn't mean your daddy's evil. It's just that, no matter how much the script will insist he's 'dazzling' or 'brilliant', this particular Doctor is a self-righteous, sanctimonious prick.

Hopefully next week a Sontaran - or maybe Donna - will slap him around a bit and teach him not to be such an ass.

Apocalypse Then

You know how it is: there you are, working away in your biological warfare lab and whoops! you drop your test tube. A few days later, you travel the globe, getting your passport stamped in all sorts of exotic locales, suddenly you start to feel a bit piquey, then everyone drops dead and before you know it civilisation as we know it is wiped out in the space of a couple of weeks. Bugger.

But you see, I have to make light of it, because the scenario is so utterly chilling. And so dramatically and effectively summed up in the opening credit sequence, that Survivors barely needs a pilot episode to tell us how it all happens. It can cut pretty quickly to the grim post-Apocalyptic business of survival.

We've only just started to watch the series - we're a mere three episodes in - and I'm just hoping our DVD rental people will keep the discs coming promptly because it's, frankly, gripping stuff. And the thing is, I'm trying to recall whether I'd watched any of it before. I don't think so. Where I get a slight buzz of nostalgia is in the opening credits, and I remember it vividly - but I also remember being packed off to bed at that point (I was eight). Good thing too. Because god knows, if I'd been allowed to stay up and watch, here is a show that would surely have given me nightmares. And not the inspiring imagination-sparking type of nightmares Doctor Who used to generate.

The Doctor Who credentials are there, for sure: Terry Nation scripting, Pennant Roberts directing the first episode, Talfryn Thomas giving it some great character actor welly. And that opening sequence that inevitably reminds me of the spread of the alien plague in Doctor Who And The Silurians. Back then, this is what adults got instead of Torchwood, I guess.

If I had one gripe with it, I'd only grumble slightly at the fact that most of the central characters so far appear to be of the crisply spoken RADA set, who will probably maintain their stiff upper lips in the face of world's end but that was a feature of a lot of TV drama back then and in any case they are at least interesting characters, whose survival you find yourself very readily invested in - even Greg (Ian McCulloch) who's so adamant about not wanting to burden himself with responsibility for others. Yeah, you say that now, mate.

By curious coincidence - you know, in the sense of not being a real coincidence at all and just one I'm choosing to see for convenience' sake - we're also at this point three episodes in on the fourth season of Battlestar Galactica, that other tale of the last vestiges of humanity struggling to survive in the wake of a man-made Apocalypse. And it's that show, if anything, that gives me a degree of optimism when it comes to the question of a Survivors remake.

I'm not saying it's the model: the two scenarios are universes apart. But the grimness, the harsh choices faced, the blurred lines of morality are suggestive of the sort of things that could be explored more fully, unfettered by the strictures of 70s era broadcasting. As long as the producers remember that the story they're telling would be about the disintegration of society and, like it or not, one of the earliest things out the window would be political correctness.

They might also do well to remember that Survivors managed, as far as I can tell, to convey grimness without (so far) showing us much in the way of gore. Good composition, less decomposition, I suppose.

Thanks to Stuart for, through no fault of his own, inspiring me to finally get on and rent the series.

Ood've Thought

A budget alien landscape. A developing sense of mystery. A simple, focused plot. And lots of running around and shooting in an old industrial complex. It's like Doctor Who all over again. All it really needed was a tweak or two here and there: less repetition of the obvious from Donna, more proactive involvement from the Doctor in the resolution, one or two fewer bad actors among the speaking extras and, of course, less Donna. But overall, I felt Planet Of The Ood was an improvement. Like the ad for the Ood at the beginning, I liked it even if it didn't make me want to go out and buy one. But so far, the series is showing a steady upward trend. It'll be a long climb from the quality abyss that was Partners In Crime, but at least it's moving in the right direction.

Resting On Caesar's Laurels

Imagine the scene. Well-to-do head of a Roman household showing off newly purchased "works of art", the wife's worried about the expense, in walks the son clearly suffering from a hangover. At about the same time, two adventuring companions arrive in the household bringing all kinds of upheaval with them. Yes, of course, it's Asterix And The Laurel Wreath, by Goscinny and Uderzo. The "works of art" are Asterix and Obelix themselves and not the TARDIS. It's also fair to point out, it's only a book and therefore can't boast the spectacular CGI of The Fires Of Pompeii, but it's fun and I recommend it thoroughly. As soon as Doctor Who introduced us to its Roman family template, I remembered the scene with fondness after a great many years. Nuff zed.