New Earth
Spoilers for episodes 1 and 2 of the new series.
Oh dear. Can we have Christopher Eccleston back now, please?
Throughout all of last night's episode, David Tennant did not feel like the Doctor. Which is strange, as once he came round from his post-regenerative coma in 'The Christmas Invasion', he definitely did feel like the Doctor. So I'm worried that his subtler performance in 'TCI' might have been a toned-down version to show the effects of the regeneration on him, and this is how Tennant is going to play the Doctor from now on - lecherous, rubber-faced and shouty. I hope not.
Lecherous? Well, yes - I'm not averse to a bit of romance between the Doctor and his companion, but 'New Earth' did it so badly. Either keep it subtextual (as the last series did) or have it between two equals (like the Doctor and Romana). Here, it just felt creepy, and made you reflect that the Doctor and Rose's situation is that of an older man kidnapping a young girl with daddy issues and repeatedly putting her in dangerous situations. I didn't want to think of the Doctor and Rose in that way. Even at the end of the Eccleston era, when you couldn't quite shake the suspicion that the Doctor, Jack and Rose were having mad bisexual orgies in the TARDIS (come on - no way was it just me thinking that), there was a sort of merry innocence to it. Or, at least, you didn't feel like you needed to shower after watching it. "Our first date"? Eurrgh.
Russell T Davies' characteristically subtle way of getting round this nagging doubt I had was to have the Doctor spend the whole second half of the episode shouting his name and basic belief credo to anyone who'd listen. "I AM THE DOCTOR! Yes, I am he! I believe in humanity and life and things like that, for I am Doctor Who! I am a committed pacifist, as you will know from watching previous episodes of Doctor Who, the television show based around the exploits of me, The Doctor! For I am the Doctor [goes on like this for another fifteen minutes solid]" Again, I hope this isn't a running theme - a hero who can't stop shouting his own name has the potential to be very annoying indeed.
Still, all credit to Billie Piper for a bravura performance that stole the episode from everyone else. Her impersonation of Cassandra impersonating Rose (yeah, get your heads round that!) was hilarious - a Mockney accent that made Guy Ritchie sound like he was born within the sound of Bow Bells. I actually liked the Cassandra stuff; I'm a sucker for a good body-swap plot, and this was a very good one indeed, with some terrific one-liners along the way ("So that means your talking out of your..."). Tellingly, the only time Tennant's performance felt real to me was when Cassandra took over his body and became briefly ecstatic about being "a man!" ("A man again", surely? In 'The End of the World' she reminisced about "when I was a little boy..." And it was nice to see the real Zoe Wannamaker in the home movie - ever since I heard Cassandra was coming back I wondered if they'd allow her an on-screen appearance)
The thing is, we've got two plots here - Lady Cassandra's return, which was good, and the hospital shocker, which was also good, but when they were squashed together you were forced to think about the lack of a real connection between the two stories. For all the fun of Cassandra's return, it didn't have to happen, and neither did the third plot strand, the return of the Face of Boe. Look, Russell, I know you love the prop. I love the prop too. Hell, I loved the Moxx of Balhoon, but does that mean I think 'Father's Day' could have been improved by the Moxx suddenly flying into the church? No, it does not. There's a time and a place for everything and the Boe plot could have been completely excised without making any difference to the general flow of the plot. All it did was increase the feeling that this episode was just running on the spot, a 'Boom Town'-esque exercise in auto-cannibalism while we wait for some new ideas in the show.
Which, happily, look like they might come along next week if that splendid trailer is anything to go by. The werewolf looks amazing - as viewers of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban will know, even big-budget Hollywood movies can't be relied on to get werewolves right. But that's exactly what one should look like.
Oh dear. Can we have Christopher Eccleston back now, please?
Throughout all of last night's episode, David Tennant did not feel like the Doctor. Which is strange, as once he came round from his post-regenerative coma in 'The Christmas Invasion', he definitely did feel like the Doctor. So I'm worried that his subtler performance in 'TCI' might have been a toned-down version to show the effects of the regeneration on him, and this is how Tennant is going to play the Doctor from now on - lecherous, rubber-faced and shouty. I hope not.
Lecherous? Well, yes - I'm not averse to a bit of romance between the Doctor and his companion, but 'New Earth' did it so badly. Either keep it subtextual (as the last series did) or have it between two equals (like the Doctor and Romana). Here, it just felt creepy, and made you reflect that the Doctor and Rose's situation is that of an older man kidnapping a young girl with daddy issues and repeatedly putting her in dangerous situations. I didn't want to think of the Doctor and Rose in that way. Even at the end of the Eccleston era, when you couldn't quite shake the suspicion that the Doctor, Jack and Rose were having mad bisexual orgies in the TARDIS (come on - no way was it just me thinking that), there was a sort of merry innocence to it. Or, at least, you didn't feel like you needed to shower after watching it. "Our first date"? Eurrgh.
Russell T Davies' characteristically subtle way of getting round this nagging doubt I had was to have the Doctor spend the whole second half of the episode shouting his name and basic belief credo to anyone who'd listen. "I AM THE DOCTOR! Yes, I am he! I believe in humanity and life and things like that, for I am Doctor Who! I am a committed pacifist, as you will know from watching previous episodes of Doctor Who, the television show based around the exploits of me, The Doctor! For I am the Doctor [goes on like this for another fifteen minutes solid]" Again, I hope this isn't a running theme - a hero who can't stop shouting his own name has the potential to be very annoying indeed.
Still, all credit to Billie Piper for a bravura performance that stole the episode from everyone else. Her impersonation of Cassandra impersonating Rose (yeah, get your heads round that!) was hilarious - a Mockney accent that made Guy Ritchie sound like he was born within the sound of Bow Bells. I actually liked the Cassandra stuff; I'm a sucker for a good body-swap plot, and this was a very good one indeed, with some terrific one-liners along the way ("So that means your talking out of your..."). Tellingly, the only time Tennant's performance felt real to me was when Cassandra took over his body and became briefly ecstatic about being "a man!" ("A man again", surely? In 'The End of the World' she reminisced about "when I was a little boy..." And it was nice to see the real Zoe Wannamaker in the home movie - ever since I heard Cassandra was coming back I wondered if they'd allow her an on-screen appearance)
The thing is, we've got two plots here - Lady Cassandra's return, which was good, and the hospital shocker, which was also good, but when they were squashed together you were forced to think about the lack of a real connection between the two stories. For all the fun of Cassandra's return, it didn't have to happen, and neither did the third plot strand, the return of the Face of Boe. Look, Russell, I know you love the prop. I love the prop too. Hell, I loved the Moxx of Balhoon, but does that mean I think 'Father's Day' could have been improved by the Moxx suddenly flying into the church? No, it does not. There's a time and a place for everything and the Boe plot could have been completely excised without making any difference to the general flow of the plot. All it did was increase the feeling that this episode was just running on the spot, a 'Boom Town'-esque exercise in auto-cannibalism while we wait for some new ideas in the show.
Which, happily, look like they might come along next week if that splendid trailer is anything to go by. The werewolf looks amazing - as viewers of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban will know, even big-budget Hollywood movies can't be relied on to get werewolves right. But that's exactly what one should look like.