Matt Finish

“Change, my dear. And not a moment too soon.”

Timing is everything.

With the recent completion of a major project (Evil UnLtd Vol 3 – ahem) I was going to kick off a rewatch of the latest season of Doctor Who either this week or next. Last night, Matt Smith announced his intention to retire from the role of the Doctor and helped me decide.

What began as a simple mechanism of convenience to explain a cast change has over the course of the years become an Event. Right here, right now, it’s a sad occasion – Matt Smith was (did I really say was?) – is my favourite Doctor since Davison. (For those of you unfamiliar with the show’s past that’s a long time.) It’ll be a shame to see him go. Simultaneously, the prospect of a new regeneration and the whirl of possibilities of who might fill the role creates a surge of excitement. The worst of times, the best of times.

We look back and we look forward. And it’s fair to say that I felt that the show was about due for a major shake-up. The irony being that Matt isn’t what needed to change.

Nor Moffat, before anyone calls for his head. As show-runner he’s made a few mistakes – excessive commissioning of ChrisChibnall scripts chief among them – but for the main part I’ve welcomed and even applauded his stewardship.

That said, reflecting back on this latest series, enduring impressions are of mediocrity mingled with occasional bright spots. When they’re bright they’re very bright, mind you, but there’s a sense of something slipping. Maybe standards. Or is it that I’m more demanding? Well, that’s one of the questions my revisit will aim to answer. But ahead of that I do know one thing for sure that has damaged the series and it’s a) outside of Moffat’s control and b) something I won’t be experiencing as I watch my way through the thirteen episodes over the coming weeks.

Because amongst the many things I am looking forward to is watching these stories minus the massive gaps in between.

That’s right. I am not a fan of the ‘mid-season break’ that’s become a feature of too many of the shows I enjoy. Bad enough we have to wait six months between seasons, to make us wait another six between halves of seasons is plain cruel. AMC’s BreakingBad, for example, is a massive favourite of mine and just when I was getting stuck into the final season they split it and I’m still dangling on a cliffhanger until July. Curse you, TV networks!

This season of Doctor Who began in September 2012, ran for five whole episodes, then whoosh, it’s off again. Barely enough to get you’re teeth into, let alone get hooked. To be fair, the departure of Amy and Rory (boohoo, sniff, it’s all coming back to me now) creates a natural break point and allows us time to mourn their absence (sob). And the Christmas Special was on hand to re-ignite interest in the Clara/Oswin thread and felt like a new beginning. But then we’re left hanging for another four months and Moffat has to supply another new beginning just to get things rolling again.

Now, Clara has enjoyed more introductory stories than any other companion – and I’m all for that. Jenna-Louise Coleman is quite lovely and lends the character a brand of fire and sparkle that’s quite distinct from Amy’s. So on one level the show can keep introducing her if needs be, but all these stops and starts are far from ideal.

The five-episode opening stretch was way too short and it seems to me there’s more pressure on a shorter run to be a lot better. It’d be unreasonable to object to two or three poor episodes in a span of thirteen. But two or three average tales in a meagre handful, I think, would strike as a poorer effort. And that’s my recollection of those first five: three middling middle episodes sandwiched between two good wholesome slices of Doctor Who bread.

Whether that impression holds on a rewatch, we’ll see, but either way I can’t help feeling the broken-up season makes Moffat’s job harder in many respects as well as making life harder on the viewers and harder on the show to attract a loyal following outside of us die-hard Who fans who’ll tune in religiously no matter what. Continuity of interest is difficult to maintain, particularly if you have over-arcing threads to weave. And Moffat does like to weave his tangled webs.

To say nothing of his tendency to half-inch ideas from me. (Intelligent snow from Drift, the Vertibike from Evil UnLtd Vol 2 and there are characters in Emotional Chemistry who aren't a million miles removed from the idea of different iterations of Clara scattered throughout time, although the temporal mechanics are different.) The swine.

Anyway, individual stories have to devote time and attention to reminding us what the hell’s going on with the bigger picture. There’s a danger then of those stories being weakened by all the extra material they have to carry. Still pretty fresh in my memory, for example, is The Crimson Horror (by Mark Gatiss), which I thoroughly enjoyed but which was robbed of some of its punch by the tail-end revelations revolving around Clara and the kids.

Oh, those kids. I really hope they improve when my rewatch arrives at Nightmare In Silver (Neil Gaiman’s Cyber-offering).

Anyway, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There are definite highlights that stand out in the mind at this stage and it’ll be interesting to see if those remain the same. I’ll cite them here for the record so we can compare notes at the end of this journey. Asylum Of The Daleks – despite now being a dim and distant recollection – struck me as a strong opener. Amy and Rory’s departure (sob) in The Angels Take Manhattan I recall as fabulous and not a little bit emotional (sniff). I delighted in The Snowmen Christmas Special – and reviewed it at the time. The Bells Of St John’s was a highly enjoyable re-opener. And I was captivated – in diverse ways – by The Rings Of Akhaten, Cold War, Hide, The Crimson Horror and The Name Of The Doctor. And Journey To The Centre Of The TARDIS to some extent.

All of which would suggest a high ratio of great episodes. A good second half. But that ‘some extent’ is applicable to most. Because it’s also worth adding that I was variously let down by a number of those latter tales.

Now’s not the time to enter into specifics as, like I say, those initial in-the-moment impressions are subject to change. A rewatch removes expectations and expectations can be a major factor.

But looking back I do see a lot of pulled punches and weak endings. At this stage I’m not sure if it’s an absence of dramatic cost or over-simple or flawed resolutions, but whatever the cause the effect is a kind of dramatic cry wolf. Whereby I am left less invested in each subsequent story as I learn to expect the letdown.

There’s much to be said for pulling the carpet out from under any given story in terms of creating a twist, but you want to do that without leaving that story falling flat on its face.

For all that, my fannish enthusiasm was at least re-ignited in full by The Name Of The Doctor.

While it has, in typical Moffat fashion, raised at least as many questions as it answered, it closed out this season and left a great fizzy taste in the mouth, whetting the appetite for that big 50^th Anniversary Special in November. I am fired up for that. Expectations are high. So, no pressure, Mr Moffat.

Obviously in a perfect world I wouldn’t have had a clue about Matt Smith’s departure – whether in that Anniversary Special or the Christmas Special that follows it. I mean, it’s not a huge surprise as it stands – I kind of expected it. But for preference I’d have loved to have been slapped in the face with that in-story, with none of the advance press. But that kind of coup must be close to impossible to achieve in these days of social media and a grapevine that seems to operate faster than light.

But the news is out there now. There’s no undoing that one.

Speculation is of course already rampant and will no doubt fuel even higher expectations. I’ve played my share of Doctor Who fantasy casting, albeit I was only serious about a select handful of them. (IanMcDiarmid, for instance, has always been a terrific choice in my mind. Likewise Richard E Grant – and there’s a story mechanism in place for that one to happen. Rachel Weisz for a female Doctor. Benedict Cumberbatch – more obvious to cast him as The Master, but why be obvious? And Peter Dinklage would be bloody brilliant.) As you can see most of my choices, for different reasons, would fall into the ‘never happen’ category. But it’s still a fun game for the imagination to play.

Whoever lands the role, I do think they need to be a radical departure from the current model. As mentioned, I don’t believe for a minute that Matt Smith was the element that needed changing, but now that it’s going to happen a major shake-up would, in my opinion, be far better than a minor one.

Naturally, I’d like to see Jenna-Louise continue in the role of Clara. I’ll have more to say about her when I reach the end of my rewatch. But beyond that, the conjunction of 50^th Anniversary and a Doctor departure presents the greatest opportunity for a series overhaul since its return.

As with casting suggestions, I have my own ideas on the kind of direction the series might benefit from taking. The difference being that, while the list of Doctors remains a fantasy, most of the ideas are eminently achievable.

As it’s Doctor Who, I will continue to contemplate and speculate. And I’ll return – with more thoughts on the subject. But in the meantime I will be engaged in my rewatch of what we now know will be Matt Smith’s final full season.

That may well colour my perspective. Most of all though it will serve as a fitting tribute to the man’s time on the show and a fitting weekly pastime that will bring me closer to those 50^th birthday celebrations. Like re-opening some presents before blowing out a whole bunch of candles on the cake.

On which note, I must depart, as I prepare to commit myself to the Asylum Of The Daleks.

SAF

EVIL UNLTD BOOK LAUNCH

Exclusive footage of the Official Evil UnLtd Vol 3 Book Launch!




As you can see, we had fantastic weather for the occasion.

Evil UnLtd Vol 3: EVIL UTD is available for Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.

Watch this space for news of the paperback and other ebook formats.

Also please visit our official Evil Unltd site. 50% of all Evil UnLtd book/ebook royalties go to Cancer Research UK.

SAF

Happy Towel Day!!

Sass that hoopy Ford Prefect, there's a frood who really knew where his towel is.

He also used to like carrying a book around with him. Obviously we can't match The Hitch-Hikers Guide for sheer helpfulness or the comforting words of 'DON'T PANIC' on the back, but we can at least offer a volume as absorbing as any towel!

EVIL UNLTD VOL 3
EVIL UTD

Released today on Amazon UK and Amazon US

The Farce Of The Dark Side.

Villains are the new Heroes in this epic Sci-Fi series.

War! What is it good for? A great many things, according to Dexter Snide. But the current interstellar conflict threatens to divert public attention from his plans to plunge the universe into economic ruin.

To make matters worse, rival broadcaster the PHUX Corporation, has exclusive coverage rights for the war between the ultra-bureaucratic System and the cute but belligerent Bunnymen. The ratings war is on.

Sentient planet Alphaterre Metroplaisir – or Alph to his friends – faces devastation and an end to his cheerful theme-park ambience as his capital city is torn apart by Evil’s latest TV phenomenon,The Minion Factor. Alph turns to PHUX for help and, in a primetime advertising slot, the call goes out for heroes.

Even with a war on and heroes in short supply, there are some who will always find time to tackle Evil UnLtd. Especially those with old personal scores to settle.

Once they’re done with the System, the Bunnymen are coming for Evil UnLtd too.

The odds are stacked and the Evil gang need to be more united than ever.

A tall order, when they are divided and scattered. And perhaps the most serious threats of all come from within...

Other ebook formats will follow, plus a paperback for those who prefer a bit of hard copy.
As part of our ongoing Evil vs Cancer campaign, we will be donating 50% of royalties from all Evil UnLtd books to Cancer Research UK. Thanks to all those who've lent their support so far.

Live long and prosper. And purchase.

And don't forget your towel!

EVIL UTD is available from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com

SAF 2013

Gunfight At The Less Than OK Kraal

Watching Journey ToThe Centre Of The TARDIS the other weekend, promoted The Android Invasion to next in my 50^th-Anniversary-year journey through some classic Doctor Who episodes on DVD. Both stories feature a masterclass in unconvincing con artistry. One has a man who convinces his brother he’s an android, the other has an alien who convinces a man he has only one good eye. And you wouldn’t even need one good eye to spot the problems with either of those ideas.

In Android Invasion, the horror of realisation as Guy Crayford lifts up his eyepatch and opens his left eye for what we have to presume is the first time is just one final weak link in a series that would leave Anne Robinson not knowing which way to point first. The fact that this is a Terry Nation script – his last for the show – and a swan song for UNIT makes it that little bit sadder.

It begins well. The deserted English village that only becomes populated when the clock strikes a certain hour, the jerky soldier toppling off a cliff only to be seen later mingling with regulars at the pub, strange white-suited astronaut figures; it’s another of those Who adventures with all the magical makings of an episode of TheAvengers. Heck, with faceless astronauts and Max Faulkner as a UNIT soldier we might as well be back watching AmbassadorsOf Death. The astronauts even take pot shots at our heroes with finger-guns like those Auton chaps of old.

It promises to be great.

Don’t make promises you can’t keep, I was always taught, and it’s a lesson this story would have done well to bear in mind. Instead, it steadily sets out to pull the threads of its early promise apart. All the intriguing strangeness surrounding the village and the villagers is undone by the central strategy underpinning the aliens’ plans and the general rubbishness of the androids. After all, the androids are intended to infiltrate rural Earth society (as part of a scheme to take over the nearby space centre) and yet when the Doctor and Sarah show up their social interaction skills are on a par with most washing machines. Even more incredible is that the Doctor assesses this setup – basically a rehearsal ground for an invasion – as perfect except for a few telltale details like freshly minted coins.

Worse, when the story has a real chance to pull a switcheroo, replacing Sarah with an android copy, it clumsily gives the game away with scenes of her capture and processing in the alien base. The second-episode cliffhanger is an all-time great in spite of this, with Sarah toppling over and her face falling off, but how much greater could it have been if the audience had been kept in the dark up to that point?

The moment also sheds serious doubt on claims by one of the aliens that the androids are ‘indestructible’. Leaving us to assume the Sarah Jane droid was turned out late on a Friday by workers keen to get home for the weekend.

Still, the motive her deployment is questionable and Kraal scientist Styggron justifies a number of similarly dubious decisions by casting it as an interesting ‘experiment’. His shabby reasoning may explain the overall shakiness of this invasion strategy. Rubbery thinking is in many respects less forgivable than rubbery faces.

Rewatching this confirms the Kraals’ comedy status. There had to be a reason I chose one to run the Central Perk-style cafe in a short story of mine and it’s simply that they must be the laughing stock of the galaxy. The mask design isn’t that bad – if you want ugly, they have it nailed – but there’s zero flexibility, no expression and the lower jaw wobbles lamely when the actor speaks. And much as I like Roy Skelton’s voice work on Who, it doesn’t help that Chedaki sounds like Zippy and/or George off Rainbow.

Later, during the actual invasion, some of the androids discover a measure of emotional range in hopes of fooling the audience with some mistaken identity shenanigans, but by and large it’s a comedy of errors without the comedy.

To be fair, Tom Baker does throw in plenty of wit throughout and it’s a given that Lis Sladen is the perfect foil. They’re clearly having fun in what must have seemed like a romp and between them they make the mess watchable. It’s just a tremendous shame that there’s next to no engaging exchanges between them and the UNIT representatives.

Then again, it’s far from a full reunion. The Brigadier is away in Geneva. Benton’s a doorpost and Harry is little more than set-dressing. So on top of make no promises you can’t keep, we are reminded that it’s better to go out on a high. Terry Nation never wrote for the UNIT family before and it shows, even with the reduced attendance. There’s no affection present. UNIT’s swan song is a flightless bird.

On one level it’s fantastic to see Patrick Newell (as Colonel Faraday) in what started as a quintessentially Avengers escapade, but on another he’s sadly wasted. Milton Johns lends the faintly ridiculous character of Guy Crayford a degree of empathy, but he’s almost as comedic a figure as the Kraals, with weak and vacillating motivations and – as mentioned – that major ‘D’oh!’ moment when he lifts that eyepatch. Never mind, Styggron outdoes him with a dash of slapstick when he drops the deadly virus he happens to be carrying around in a flask and falls face down in a puddle of rubber-dissolving goo. What larks.

Let’s be honest, a great deal of the enjoyment to be had from many a Doctor Who story amounts to how far you can forgive its flaws. Sometimes they’re little more than skin deep. Sometimes the whole thing falls over at the slightest nudge and their face falls off to expose all the dodgy wiring underneath.

The Android Invasion has its memorable moments but those are the rare occasions when the cheap imitation manages to pass muster. It’s never long before it returns to form, lurching jerkily along and toppling over a cliff.

SAF

We Come In Peace, Shoot To Kill!

When Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks inherited Doctor Who from their predecessors they weren’t overly keen on the setup they’d been handed. The Doctor’s exile to Earth must have seemed like a sentence imposed on them, with inherent limitations on the kinds of story they would be able to tell. Mad professors and alien invasions, that’s your lot. All credit to them then for everything they achieved with Season 7, Pertwee’s debut and the show’s first year in colour.

And if you’re detecting traces of bias in that opening paragraph, you’re not wrong. Doctor Who has through much of its history been a prime example of succeeding in the face of budgetary and technological shortcomings, but only very rarely has it had to challenge the restrictions of its own format.

The Ambassadors Of Death faced even more difficulties as credited writer, David Whitaker, was struggling with the scripts and replaced at a late hour by Malcolm Hulke. So it’s a minor miracle that anything coherent emerged, let alone a story that stands up as one of my personal favourites.

For one thing, it features my earliest Who memory - that of two creepy space-suited figures striding in slow-motion – and I don’t doubt that deeply embedded childhood experience has done as good a job of colouring my perspective as the restoration team did on the black-and-white print. So you’ll pardon me for stating, before we go any further, that I love it.

I even kind of love the quirky episode openings, sandwiched between two bursts of title music. Pyow! as a friend of mine so ably expressed it on Twitter.

It goes without saying, there are problems. But I’d best say it anyway, as a nod to objectivity if nothing else. But overcoming flaws is not such an issue when there’s such a great premise at the story’s core.

Silurians asked, what if the aliens were here first? And Ambassadors goes for another alternative twist on the alien invasion. Namely, what if the alien invaders aren’t invaders at all, they’ve come in peace and are only being used by nefarious humans? Brilliant.

Sometimes even the simplest of ideas requires a degree of contrivance to make it work and that’s certainly the case here. Circumstances are carefully managed and inevitably situations have to be further contrived to sustain the tale for its seven parts. The story length might be daunting for some, but I rewatched it one episode at a time and each is quite a neat little parcel of action, mystery, suspense and all the essential ingredients for nudging along the narrative.

It’s also big-budget stuff for Doctor Who and for the most part that’s right there on the screen.

The cash does disappear at times – like in the rocket launch, for example – but the model shots of the mating space capsules are pretty decent. Where the overspend is most apparent is in the big action set-pieces where stunt group Havoc get to play soldiers. When it comes to the transporter hijack, director Michael Ferguson seems to believe he’s helming a Hollywood blockbuster.

Some of the blockbuster action is a bit stagey – and even hammy when the Brigadier gets involved in a spot of fisticuffs in the latter phase – but in the context of early 70s BBC television drama it’s bona fide James Bond stuff, providing spectacle and pepping up the pace in what amounts to a thinking man’s Moonraker.

Or Marsraker, perhaps.

Because this tale revolves around a series of (British!) Mars missions. It shows its age in the best possible way, in that it lovingly reflects the fascination with the Apollo missions of the era. An age when a manoeuvring capsule or a spacewalk were clearly celebrated as something amazing and captivating, no matter that they didn’t make for the fastest TV. The pedestrian pace of those sequences and the subdued, functional mood in mission control do much to root this sci-fi caper in a passable impression of reality. A realism further enhanced by the consistently lax security you’d expect at a British Space Centre.

And somehow it succeeds as a tale of first contact despite occurring late in an already rich history of alien invasions.

The martians, not to be confused with the Ice Warriors, are being used as puppets by the human villains of the piece. There’s only one out-and-out bad guy, however, in the form of mercenary and crook, Reegan, who has ambitions of putting the aliens to work in a string of bank robberies. With these guys you could knock off Fort Knox, he says.

His boss, General Carrington, is a different matter. He’s no Hugo Drax. He’s insane, but in a sympathetic way. His motivations are given credible enough basis by a backstory comparable to that of General Williams in Hulke’s later Frontier In Space – in essence, a fatal – and fateful – misunderstanding. At the end, he appeals to the Doctor and when the Doctor tells him he understands, you know it’s sincerely meant. It’s his actual aims – how he intends to use the aliens – that seem vague and ill-formed. Reegan’s agenda is abundantly clear. While Carrington spends most of the time juggling and manipulating and basically striving to keep his not altogether pinned-down plans afloat.

Probably a product of the script’s patchy development, but it works in terms of the men’s respective mental states. Questions remain: like, if Carrington’s crewmate, Jim, died on a previous Mars Probe mission, why didn’t he report the details? Then again, many an officer might resist talking of UFOs for fear they might appear mad. And even the mad ones probably wouldn’t wish to seem mad.

The martians themselves are haunting, enigmatic figures. Faceless space-suited figures, impervious to bullets and with a lethal brand of Midas touch. Their death grip manifests as a highly visible – and colourful – form of radiation which may be unscientific but it’s a nice effect which spells it out for the viewer.

It’s a shame they don’t appear until quite far into the story, but on the other hand the mystery surrounding them is largely preserved. All to the benefit of what rates – for me – as one of the best endings in Doctor Who.

Crisis resolved, the Doctor walks off, leaving humans to handle this first contact situation on their own.

Knowing next to nothing about them places us in the same boat as the humans. Whatever is transacted between the two races, whatever there is to be learned about these aliens, is an undiscovered country, another story for another time. That excites the imagination far more than the (frankly unnecessary) glimpse we’re given of one martian’s face, sans helmet. This isn’t a story about these aliens, it’s about how humanity responds when confronted with the unknown. So it exercises great control by keeping them an unknown.

The humans involved are a mixed bag. John Abineri gives us a nicely understated insane General. Ronald Allen as Ralph Cornish seems to have taken his role as Controller a shade too literally, with almost every line delivered as though his volume control has been turned down, but he’s convincing enough and provides a calm centre to the spiralling events. Taltalian (Robert Cawdron) strikes as a comical creation with his Pythonesque French accent. The always brilliant Michael Wisher provides excellent soft-spoken BBC commentary to some key events worthy of the great David Attenborough himself. Cyril Shaps (one of those semi-regulars you’ll see popping up as different characters in Who) is terrific as the doomed, weaselly Lennox and it’s a nice touch to have him and Liz Shaw recognise each other from their Cambridge days.

Caroline John, needless to say, is fab, fulfilling her role as the Doctor’s assistant with her customary sparkle and she seems to relish all that she’s handed in this adventure. A stuntman takes over for certain scenes but the script gives her plenty to do and rounds out the character of Liz Shaw as the most capable pre-Leela companion, with her grasp of sciences, technical know-how, language skills and heaps of pluck to give enemies a run for their money. Her line to one of the heavies as he grabs her – “It’s all right. I won’t hurt you.” – is priceless.

The Doctor, likewise, gets a healthy variety of stuff to do and Pertwee is in fine form, at home and enjoying himself in the role, able to demonstrate all his natural flair as an action hero, scientist, comedian and (ironically, given that he steps out ahead of actual negotiations), the ultimate diplomat.

It’s a great showpiece for his Doctor as well as for the new era which Letts and Dicks inherited. It’s also, like Recovery Seven, a successful rescue mission, managing to salvage something of a classic from a project fraught with difficulties.

And it delivers an important lesson for us all:

If you ever find yourself in attendance at one of these Ambassadors’ parties, don’t touch the Ferrero Rocher.

SAF