The British Invasion: On Doctor Who and Dirk Gently
I find Doctor Who... comforting.
In this mad, upside down world of ours, the Doctor is (in his own, weird way) an anchor of stability. He is undying (twelve incarnations and counting); he is answerable to no man or government, and yet, he is keenly aware of his limitations and the dangers of abusing his power; and he's driven the same vehicle for either 53 or two thousand years (depending on your point of view).
The mythology of the series is overgrown and often contradictory, but modern Who writers have found a way to dip into the richness of DW lore without strangling themselves with questions of continuity; so the new episodes can be fresh and reflect the series' depth at the same time.
But most of all, we've had four Doctors since the series came back in 2004: Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, Matt Smith, and now Peter Capaldi--and they've all been phenomenal. Even if you don't like the script, tuning into a new DW episode means you'll catch a great actor sinking his teeth into an iconic role.
And so, after a full year without any NuWho, I was happy to see "The Return of Doctor Mysterio" on my teevee, a slight-but-confident salute to American superheroes from the perspective of Britain's #1 superhero.
Steven Moffat isn't going for broad, snarky parody here; the tone is way too affectionate for that. In a surprisingly low-key manner, he contrasts the classic American style of superhero melodrama--specifically, the Clark Kent/Lois Lane/Superman love "triangle"--with the more reserved, British approach to the material. It's obvious to anyone watching that the Doctor has a galaxy-sized hole in his hearts after losing River--but his grief is not on display, thank you very much.
Moffat and Capaldi get a lot of mileage out of the Doctor reacting to Grant's preposterous romantic life, culminating in Capaldi's four-minute eyeroll during the "three-way" phone call with Grant, Lucy, and The Ghost. Funny, funny stuff.
As much as I enjoyed the comedy, this wasn't one of the best DW Xmas specials (hard to top "Last Christmas" from 2014); the brain-switching villains were kind of boring, and Moffat still hasn't found a solid reason for Matt Lucas to hang around. Right now, Nardole has taken over the "addled manservant" slot vacated by Drax--but he's not as entertaining as Drax.
Overall, though, a welcome return and... Bring on season ten!
While Doctor #12 was getting his groove back, BBC America treated Whovians to a lost classic from Doctor #2: "The Power of the Daleks," Patrick Troughton's first full serial as the Doctor from way back in 1966, recreated in animation with the original audio soundtrack.
Oooh, I wanted to like this one so much... but I didn't connect with it at all. There were a lot of small problems here that added up to a less-than-entertaining experience:
1. The animation wasn't kind to the bipeds. The backgrounds were fine. The Daleks? Looked great. But the creatures on two legs walked and talked like marionettes, with jerky leg and jaw movements that made you look for hidden strings.
2. Ben and Polly. To be blunt, neither of these characters are on anybody's top ten list of Doctor companions. (They seem even duller when you remember that one of the series' best companions--Jamie McCrimmon--would be introduced in the very next episode.)
3. The colonists are idiots. "Power" is often praised for its multifaceted characters and the complex political machinations on the mining planet of Vulcan. But to a long-time DW fan, it just looks like the Daleks are playing both the administration and the rebels for suckers. How can I empathize with these people if they can't tell that there are more than three Daleks scooting around, and don't realize that the Daleks are actually BREEDING in front of their noses? Morons.
Combine these factors, and around episode four, you begin to think the Daleks have a point--maybe they ARE the superior life form, and you wish the Doctor would stop trying to save the colonists, cut his losses, and go back to the TARDIS.
(I'm not sure that was the writer's original intent.)
************************
How do you duplicate--or even approximate--the literary voice of a Douglas Adams?
Adams created a vast, absurd universe populated by creatures who built near-omniscient machines and all-encompassing bureaucracies in a vain attempt to bring order to chaos and meaning to the meaningless. Existence would seem to be unbearable in such a universe--but Adams graced it with enough moments of genuine wonder and pure British whimsy to make life worth living. (Sort of.)
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency is minor Adams, but it IS Adams, and the idea of turning it into an ongoing TV series without Adams to write it is a risky proposition. Max Landis (Chronicle, American Ultra) and his crew never quite find the Adams Voice. Season 1 reduces Adams' cosmic farce to little more than a giant puzzle box; yes, it's a strange, four-dimensional puzzle box, but if you've watched Doctor Who or any time travel science fiction, you can pretty much figure out how the pieces fit together.
There is a super secret military organization, just like the ones from every bad sci-fi series of the past decade; there is too much exposition; the head villain is abrasive and has a deliberately annoying croak of a voice; and the season's most inspired piece of Pythonesque whimsy--an adorable kitten imbued with the soul of a shark--is used in one spectacular scene and then literally forgotten.
That's not to say there aren't pleasures here. Elijah Wood and Hannah Marks develop an excellent rapport as the Brotzman siblings, Todd and Amanda, and you actually care when their relationship hits the skids. Miguel Sandoval--who made the dodgy premise of Medium go down easy--does the same thing here as the founder of the aforementioned secret organization. And Fiona Dourif--that's right, Brad's daughter--duplicates her father's thousand-yard stare of the Severely Fucked Up as Bart, Dirk's mirror image. The evolving relationship between the near-feral Bart and Ken (her hostage/disciple) easily shows the most promise for a potential season two.
As for Dirk himself, he might be the big weak spot of the series-- not so much a protagonist but a leaf on the wind of the plot. Samuel Barnett chatters constantly to cover his lack of agency, and it's tough to root for a main character who's something of a (there's no other word) flibbertigibbet.
If there is a season two, Dirk's gotta get his act together.
In this mad, upside down world of ours, the Doctor is (in his own, weird way) an anchor of stability. He is undying (twelve incarnations and counting); he is answerable to no man or government, and yet, he is keenly aware of his limitations and the dangers of abusing his power; and he's driven the same vehicle for either 53 or two thousand years (depending on your point of view).
The mythology of the series is overgrown and often contradictory, but modern Who writers have found a way to dip into the richness of DW lore without strangling themselves with questions of continuity; so the new episodes can be fresh and reflect the series' depth at the same time.
But most of all, we've had four Doctors since the series came back in 2004: Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, Matt Smith, and now Peter Capaldi--and they've all been phenomenal. Even if you don't like the script, tuning into a new DW episode means you'll catch a great actor sinking his teeth into an iconic role.
And so, after a full year without any NuWho, I was happy to see "The Return of Doctor Mysterio" on my teevee, a slight-but-confident salute to American superheroes from the perspective of Britain's #1 superhero.
Steven Moffat isn't going for broad, snarky parody here; the tone is way too affectionate for that. In a surprisingly low-key manner, he contrasts the classic American style of superhero melodrama--specifically, the Clark Kent/Lois Lane/Superman love "triangle"--with the more reserved, British approach to the material. It's obvious to anyone watching that the Doctor has a galaxy-sized hole in his hearts after losing River--but his grief is not on display, thank you very much.
Moffat and Capaldi get a lot of mileage out of the Doctor reacting to Grant's preposterous romantic life, culminating in Capaldi's four-minute eyeroll during the "three-way" phone call with Grant, Lucy, and The Ghost. Funny, funny stuff.
As much as I enjoyed the comedy, this wasn't one of the best DW Xmas specials (hard to top "Last Christmas" from 2014); the brain-switching villains were kind of boring, and Moffat still hasn't found a solid reason for Matt Lucas to hang around. Right now, Nardole has taken over the "addled manservant" slot vacated by Drax--but he's not as entertaining as Drax.
Overall, though, a welcome return and... Bring on season ten!
While Doctor #12 was getting his groove back, BBC America treated Whovians to a lost classic from Doctor #2: "The Power of the Daleks," Patrick Troughton's first full serial as the Doctor from way back in 1966, recreated in animation with the original audio soundtrack.
Oooh, I wanted to like this one so much... but I didn't connect with it at all. There were a lot of small problems here that added up to a less-than-entertaining experience:
1. The animation wasn't kind to the bipeds. The backgrounds were fine. The Daleks? Looked great. But the creatures on two legs walked and talked like marionettes, with jerky leg and jaw movements that made you look for hidden strings.
2. Ben and Polly. To be blunt, neither of these characters are on anybody's top ten list of Doctor companions. (They seem even duller when you remember that one of the series' best companions--Jamie McCrimmon--would be introduced in the very next episode.)
3. The colonists are idiots. "Power" is often praised for its multifaceted characters and the complex political machinations on the mining planet of Vulcan. But to a long-time DW fan, it just looks like the Daleks are playing both the administration and the rebels for suckers. How can I empathize with these people if they can't tell that there are more than three Daleks scooting around, and don't realize that the Daleks are actually BREEDING in front of their noses? Morons.
Combine these factors, and around episode four, you begin to think the Daleks have a point--maybe they ARE the superior life form, and you wish the Doctor would stop trying to save the colonists, cut his losses, and go back to the TARDIS.
(I'm not sure that was the writer's original intent.)
************************
How do you duplicate--or even approximate--the literary voice of a Douglas Adams?
Adams created a vast, absurd universe populated by creatures who built near-omniscient machines and all-encompassing bureaucracies in a vain attempt to bring order to chaos and meaning to the meaningless. Existence would seem to be unbearable in such a universe--but Adams graced it with enough moments of genuine wonder and pure British whimsy to make life worth living. (Sort of.)
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency is minor Adams, but it IS Adams, and the idea of turning it into an ongoing TV series without Adams to write it is a risky proposition. Max Landis (Chronicle, American Ultra) and his crew never quite find the Adams Voice. Season 1 reduces Adams' cosmic farce to little more than a giant puzzle box; yes, it's a strange, four-dimensional puzzle box, but if you've watched Doctor Who or any time travel science fiction, you can pretty much figure out how the pieces fit together.
There is a super secret military organization, just like the ones from every bad sci-fi series of the past decade; there is too much exposition; the head villain is abrasive and has a deliberately annoying croak of a voice; and the season's most inspired piece of Pythonesque whimsy--an adorable kitten imbued with the soul of a shark--is used in one spectacular scene and then literally forgotten.
That's not to say there aren't pleasures here. Elijah Wood and Hannah Marks develop an excellent rapport as the Brotzman siblings, Todd and Amanda, and you actually care when their relationship hits the skids. Miguel Sandoval--who made the dodgy premise of Medium go down easy--does the same thing here as the founder of the aforementioned secret organization. And Fiona Dourif--that's right, Brad's daughter--duplicates her father's thousand-yard stare of the Severely Fucked Up as Bart, Dirk's mirror image. The evolving relationship between the near-feral Bart and Ken (her hostage/disciple) easily shows the most promise for a potential season two.
As for Dirk himself, he might be the big weak spot of the series-- not so much a protagonist but a leaf on the wind of the plot. Samuel Barnett chatters constantly to cover his lack of agency, and it's tough to root for a main character who's something of a (there's no other word) flibbertigibbet.
If there is a season two, Dirk's gotta get his act together.