Doctor Who

[miriam_e]

I have never been a fan of Doctor Who. I never really understood the attraction it held for a surprising number of my friends. I have been reading science fiction (and science) since I was in primary school, but the kind of story I always enjoyed the most was one where the writer played with ideas to alter our perception so that we saw old things in new ways. The other kind of SF I enjoy is where stories convey an important message.

I haven't watched a lot of Dr Who, so I can't speak with any great expertise, but the old series of Dr Who seemed to be about reinforcing prejudices (e.g. ugly = bad), cult of personality (superior stranger comes and saves us), and a simple storyline (inscrutable, melodramatic, psychopathic, bad guys come to destroy or enslave).

Friends brought the third season on DVD and I watched it over the last few days and was pleasantly surprised at the level of improvement. It is still very much about hero worship and inscrutable, psychopathic, bad guys out to destroy, but there are now extra levels to the stories. My favorite so far is "Blink" -- a brilliant, twisting, turning piece of horror. It hardly features the Doctor at all and is mostly about a very well-written young girl (played very believably by Carey Mulligan) and her relationships with those around her as she struggles to understand a dangerous puzzle. Another surprisingly good episode (well, until the bad guys showed up) was the double episode "Human Nature/Family of Blood" in which the Doctor becomes a normal human and gives David Tennant a chance to show that he is capable of some excellent acting when he isn't bound to the overblown Doctor character. In Gridlock there isn't a conventional bad guy, some of the makeup is just beautiful, and the justification for the dangerous situation is simple, but elegant. "42" was a nice concept for a story too. Some of the supporting cast were very good, particularly Michelle Collins who played McDonnall superbly.

So, I'll be on the look out for the earlier episodes of the new series Doctor Who. I'm particularly interested in stories written by Steven Moffat, the guy who wrote "Blink". He also wrote the two-part "The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances" (season 1) and "The Girl in the Fireplace" (season 2).

Comments

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Heheheh :) Looking at your icon above I kept thinking that the teletubbies are missing.

I'd agree about "Daleks in Manhattan", but I kept wondering why. I like to watch shows that are pure corn and wonder what it is that makes them "bad"... it is a bit of an obsession with me. Sometimes it is surprisingly hard to pin down exactly why some things don't work. In "Daleks in Manhattan" I think it is a combination. The converting humans into work-drones might have worked if they weren't pig people. The Doctors inviting the Daleks to blast him in the park is just plain unbelievable. A human being joined with a Dalek genetically is plain stupid, but if that is an ambitious and fairly heartless person who then becomes compassionate after the merger it requires a convincing explanation or else it just looks silly. I become annoyed when chromosomes and evolution are used for hand-waving obfuscation because the author doesn't understand them and simply expects that everyone else has their low level of science knowledge.

All that said, there are a number of nice aspects of the story, like the budding love relationship being tragically broken, the comparison between how opposite are the reactions of two war veterans (the black guy who was the leader in the park, and the ambitious white guy who ends up hybridising with a dalek). So why does the episode not work better? A lot of people spent a lot of time and effort on it, but still it falls short. That is humbling.

[drjon.livejournal.com]

So why does the episode not work better? A lot of people spent a lot of time and effort on it, but still it falls short. That is humbling.

You're absolutely right.