Doctor Who: 2010

After episode 769: The Sarah Jane Adventures - Death of the Doctor part 2
First broadcast: 5.15 pm on Tuesday, 26 October 2010
<< back to 2009

Jo wowed by all of time and space
The Death of the Doctor, part 2

There's an interview with Katy Manning in a tick, but first some rambling preamble about thinking positive...

I've spoken before about my love for the Doctor Who books produced for grown-up readers in the years there was no TV show. Yet those books sometimes struggled with what "grown-up" might entail. There were bits of sex and drugs and violence, but also the tone of them could sometimes be no fun.

Perhaps this is most obvious in the way the books treated characters from the TV show. Some did very well - Romana got to be president of the Time Lords and UNIT's Benton and Yates lived happily ever after. But Ace fled the Doctor to join the anti-Dalek army (Love And War, 1992) and returned only more cross, Liz Shaw was horrifically killed by a biological agent (Eternity Weeps, 1997), the Brigadier accidentally killed his own wife (The Shadows of Avalon, 2000), and Jo Jones got divorced, then killed a whole alien settlement - we're left unsure whether on purpose or because she panicked (Genocide, 1997).

It's not that I don't see the dramatic potential in awful things happening to the Doctor's friends, but perhaps the books ended up suggesting that travelling in the TARDIS was bad for you. Or perhaps they reflected an aspect of the fandom of the time, as it grew increasingly older and grumpier. Sometimes in all its efforts to be serious and grown up, perhaps these adventures lost the daft, thrilling joy of the series.

I argued last time that there's no such thing as canon in Doctor Who, and that the series is at its best when it shares. I love that so many moments in the TV show - from whole plots to fleeting asides - derive from the books and comics and audio plays. Yet I'm delighted that Russell T Davies struck a line through the companions' miseries and started again, showing that - despite the hardships of travel by TARDIS - the Doctor makes people better.

That's perfectly, beautifully done in a short scene at the start of part two of Death of the Doctor, a story from spin-off show The Sarah Jane Adventures where Matt Smith's Doctor meets Sarah Jane and Jo. Jo - still happily married - dares to ask why she's not seen the Doctor since he walked out of her engagement party at the end of The Green Death (1973).

DOCTOR:
How could I ever find you? You've spent the past forty years living in huts, climbing up trees, tearing down barricades. You've done everything from flying kites on Kilimanjaro to sailing down the Yangtze in a tea chest. Not even the TARIS could pin you down.

JO:
Hold on. I did sail down the Yangtze in a tea chest. How did you know?

Russell T Davies: The Sarah Jane Adventures - The Death of the Doctor, part 2 (2010).

The Doctor and Koquillion
via KOTWG

A month before that story was broadcast, I blagged three days' work at Doctor Who Adventures, the magazine aimed at 8-12 year-olds. I've ended up working for them on and off ever since. It's a giddy, fun thing to work on, and I've delighted in smuggling in as much old and obscure Doctor Who knowledge as possible (for example, making "Koquillion" an answer in a wordsearch).

We have to be careful, though: the readership is thrilled by the strange terror of each new episode rather than Doctor Who of old. Earlier this year we had to remind them - yes, fans of Doctor Who - who David Tennant is because many of them would be too young to remember his time as the Doctor.

Since they're less weighed down by Doctor Who's sprawling history, they have fewer hang-ups about it and are less mired in furious discussion of whether a new story breaks "the rules". (Clue: Doctor Who doesn't have any rules.) That only seems to happen as they get older and want to be more "grown up".

And, of course, they're wrong. Doctor Who isn't some angsty, angry documentary to be cross about on the internet. It's a thrilling, scary, ridiculous joy.

Anyway. On 7 October 2010, Doctor Who Adventures editor Moray Laing got me to interview Katy Manning about her imminent return as Jo. Thanks to Moray and Katy for kind permission to post it here.

How was Friday night [and the screening of Death of the Doctor at the BFI]?
It was a long day, because I’d been doing photoshoots and everything. And then we went and they put us in the very front row with all these wonderful children and the people who are producing all this fabulous stuff on CBBC. So I saw the new up-and-coming children’s stuff and it was all very exciting. And then suddenly - in high definition on an enormous screen that I could actually see - it happened! It’s really well done. The production values are fantastic. I’m very impressed with the quality of the actual show. The Sarah Jane Adventures is right up there. It’s almost beyond a children’s show in quality… No, that’s not the right thing to say because everything should be quality. But it is an extremely well put-together, well written, beautifully shot piece of television. The only problem for me was that I’m not a watcher of myself or a listener to myself, because I do something and I move on. If I don’t, there’s nothing I can do to change anything and you waste an awful lot of your life dwelling in the wrong place. I always give it 190 per cent but you’re always looking to what you can do to better yourself. So after I’d got over the shock of myself, everything was fine. I think I look like a massive Muppet! (She laughs.)

A lot of kids watching will be meeting Jo for the first time. So what can you tell us about her?
Something that has got lost in the mists of time is that Jo was 18 when she joined the Doctor, so she was straight out of school and she’d done just under a year with UNIT which trained her in all these different things. In actual fact she finally admitted that she’d not passed the exams in science and so forth. She did escapology, cryptology, all sorts of things. I was asked about what she did yesterday. I know escapology was one, one was like Sanskrit or something weird like that.

Wasn’t she trained in spying?
No, I don’t think she ever said that. That’s something that’s come from the back of Cornflakes packets about a year later. You have to keep correcting these things because everything goes up on the internet as gospel. But I know she never said she did spying. She said she did science when the Doctor asked her a question about science. He said, ‘I thought you took A-level science?’ And she says, ‘I never said I passed.’ So I think science and spying got confused. Jo wasn’t fully trained. She got into UNIT because she had an uncle who worked very high up in UNIT. So she was forced upon the Doctor and he took one look at this little tiny creature and thought, ‘Oh, my Lord!’ But it worked very well because Jo turned out to be bright, courageous and in virtually every story at some point she offered her life for the Doctor’s. She was fiercely loyal to the Doctor and felt truly that his life was more important than hers.

She was very protective of him.
Very protective.

At the end of The Daemons, she offers her life for his – and that’s what stops the monster.
And in a couple of other episodes of other stories she did the same thing. So she really was fiercely loyal and very brave. She was 18 and grew up in front of your very eyes. By the time she left she’s met a Nobel Peace Prize winner who was trying to change our planet. She felt very strongly about doing the same thing and married to him! You actually watched her grow up from a schoolgirl, having just left school, to getting married - which I think’s rather lovely. What got lost in the mists of time was that Jo was also terribly trendy. People remember her as being slightly ditzy and there were moments where she kind of lost the plot. But she was never stupid: she did stupid things for the right reasons. Don’t we all! I thought she was a lovely character. Also, for the children to know: when I was cast as Jo, they were going to change an awful lot of Doctor Who. They had some more money to work with special effects. They wanted the audience to grow from children but to never forget the children. I was there to say, ‘What does that mean? What are you doing?’ And to get into trouble so the Doctor had someone to save, apart from a planet and various other things that were going on. That was rather sweet, too. She was there to make sure that the children never got left out but we also went into a teenage and an adult audience during the Jon Pertwee era. So because she was trendy and of the moment you got a lot of teenagers looking in, saying ‘Wow!’ She was quite groovy and cool, too.

She’s still quite cool. According to these new episodes, she’s off round the world…
Absolutely. How perfect that she continued to do that – stayed with Cliff, had all those children and still continued her work, which says something about what she learned and gained from working with the Doctor.

How much has she changed? Is she still the same character to play?
It was a character I played 40 years ago. I’m the kind of actor who went on to do so many different things. I had a very assorted career, so it wasn’t like I’d stayed with her. But when I looked at Russell’s script it made an awful lot of sense to me, from what we saw on screen for those three years. I then had to put myself into having lived that life and make it absolutely as if this was a continuation of her life 40 years later. Somebody like Jo, who was brave, courageous and adventurous, what would she have done? Well, she did it. Including seven children and 12 grandchildren – 13th on its way. And what a handsome one she brought with her! Named after somewhere where I think they just had the baby at the bottom of the mountain! It was a tremendous script from Russell and followed perfectly. Not that I’d ever thought about where Jo’s life would have gone because, in all honesty, she was a character that I played – not a real person. People used to say, ‘What do you think happened to her?’ And I’d say, ‘I don’t know – she wasn’t real!’ But if you look at somebody’s life, say I look at my own, where I was at that age and where I am now, my life has gone in the direction that it was obviously going to go. So it was an absolute joy to continue, to bring back this character but with all the differences that would have come with it. How life affects you and what you do makes you become who you are. Having worked with the Doctor and gone to all these other planets and seen all the problems, not only in the universe but on this planet, Jo felt very strongly about these things. And is still doing it - fighting for things to be better.

So when you were making this new story, how much has Doctor Who changed? There’s UNIT, the ventilation shafts, monsters and explosions…
And planets that are very cold and with lots of little bits of broken spaceship on them! Those feelings of being in a quarry and things like that, that brought back huge memories. The only difference was that I was a lot warmer because I wasn’t wearing a mini-skirt.

Did you compare notes with Lis Sladen?
Oh yes. Lis and I, obviously having both worked so close together and also being among the first girls to see regeneration as such and to go through what we went through, as actresses, yes. A lot of memories of people and places.

You mentioned regeneration. How does Matt’s Doctor compare to Jon's Doctor? Can you believe he’s the same person?
Yes. The concept to me is so clear that anybody who is purportedly 2,000 years old can look any age. Although for Jo it is a bit of a shock because the only Doctors she’s ever seen have all been rather elderly – certainly to somebody of the age she was then. When we’re 18, we look at anybody over 35 as being terribly old. That changes when you get older! There’s a line she says, when he says he can he regenerate: ‘Yes, but into a baby?’ Jo is now 40 years on with children and had only ever met three Doctors who were all of a certain age. I think it’s wonderful that you can do that with a character. Matt is one of the most sensational Doctors ever. He is the most fabulous actor and the most delightful young man. I rate him as an actor hugely.

People have said you can believe Matt is much older than he really is.
He is an old soul, absolutely. I believed totally that he had lived this long life and been this many people. He’s got that wonderful ethereal, other-worldly quality. He’s done an amazing job. Apart from anything else, even as an old lady, I can stand back and say, ‘Isn’t he gorgeous?’ I’ve loved the whole of the new series - right from Chris Eccleston. I think Matt’s just wonderful. People were saying, ‘How are we going to top Tennant?’ You don’t top someone, you try and bring something to the part that is completely different and that is exactly what Matt has done. I’ve never been a Doctor comparer – is that Doctor better than that Doctor? They are all part of one person to me and have all done a superb job. Matt has just come in and blown me away. And he’s so sweet to work with.

What did he do that won you over?
First of all, just watching this boy, this young actor, and how his mind is working, how totally he has immersed himself in this character. And all the very clever little eccentricities that he’s brought, all his physicality. He’s still a very caring Doctor, which is something I loved about Jon Pertwee – he was very caring about everybody and certainly about Jo. Matt has all of that and this extraordinary physicality. I don’t know how else to put it. It’s stunning to watch. You know, when we first meet him and he was all a bit wobbly? It started there and I watched from that point. He’s thinking, thinking, thinking all the time. When you look into his eyes, he’s right with you – absolutely lovely.

So will we see more of Jo after this?
I think we might have had enough of her, don’t you? Are we over her yet? She is a lovely creature. You know what I like about Jo? It was always in the old series as well as in bringing her back. She has no sides to her. She’s very loving and caring, which is nice to see.

She’s got lots of empathy.
For everybody and everything. She always did, even in the old days. She was always concerned, even about the bad guys. That’s a nice part of her nature. Hopefully the children will understand that although she’s now a grandmother she’s a groovy granny! It’s not bad to have a granny that says, ‘No, you don’t have to go to school, we’ll educate you along the way. We’ll go off and save the world.’ When you think of the things she’s done, that’s exactly what she has been doing. She’s never, never stopped. That’s quite a groovy granny. It was so lovely working with Lis, too, who is such a generous and such a good actress. Anjli and Daniel are sensational, I just wanted to eat them up they were so fabulous. That was lovely for me. I just felt tremendous warmth towards them.

Next episode: 2011

Doctor Who: 2009

Episode 754: The Waters of Mars
First broadcast 7 pm on Sunday, 15 November 2009
<< back to 2008

"What do I know?"
The Doctor and Adelaide, The Waters of Mars

First, a little etymological history.

The word cane - as in sugar cane - gets its name from the Greek kanon, a reed. These reeds grew straight, and one theory is that, in ancient times, they were used to measure stuff. As a result, they were associated with standards or ways of doing things properly. A 'canon' meant a kind of rule.

Nowadays, generally, 'canon' refers to the rules of a religion, and specifically Christian religion. It's used to define the books of the Bible that make up the official scripture, as opposed to the Apocrypha which - according to those that make the rules - don't carry the same weight. In the early Christian Church, there seems to have been a distinction made between canons - the rules of the Church - and legislation enacted by the state. Today, canon law is decided on and enforced by church authorities (here's a handy link to Wikipedia: Canon law (Catholic Church) if you'd like to know more).

How is this relevant to Doctor Who, you ask. Well, it isn't really.

But in 1911, as the Doctor battled Sutekh, the Catholic priest Monsignor Knox gave a paper called "Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes", which attempted to devise biographies of Holmes and Watson as if they were real people. In doing so, it sought to explain the inconsistencies in the various Holmes stories written by Arthur Conan-Doyle. Wikipedia says Knox used the word "canon" to differentiate the Holmes stories by Doyle from those written by anyone else, though I can't see that in the text of his paper. But the "canon" came to mean those stories Doyle himself wrote.

This distinction didn't help with the inconsistencies: in the 40 years that Doyle wrote his four novels and 56 stories about Holmes, he forgot Watson's first name, what part of his body was wounded and even the details of who he was married to. There are also a number of Holmes stories by Doyle that are not considered part of the canon - largely, it seems, because they don't take Holmes very seriously.

So the distinction of canon is not about quality so much as agreeing the boundaries for the game of treating the stories as real and dealing with the inconsistencies. But the effect is to suggest that Doyle's stories matter more than anyone else's. It gives him, as creator, authority.

The same value judgement exists in efforts to compile a canon of Western culture - which has often proved controversial because of that question of authority. Who determines which books and artworks matter more than others? It's useful having a reading list for students, but a canon is likely to show the prejudice and preference of whoever compiles it.

Where there is a clear authority to rule on the matter, things ought to be easier. The official Star Trek website explained in 2003:

"As a rule of thumb, the events that take place within the live-action episodes and movies are canon, or official Star Trek facts. Story lines, characters, events, stardates, etc. that take place within the fictional novels, video games, the Animated Series, and the various comic lines have traditionally not been considered part of the canon. But canon is not something set in stone; even events in some of the movies have been called into question as to whether they should be considered canon! Ultimately, the fans, the writers and the producers may all differ on what is considered canon and the very idea of what is canon has become more fluid, especially as there isn't a single voice or arbiter to decide. Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry was accustomed to making statements about canon, but even he was known to change his mind."

Web archive for StarTrek.com FAQs, 10 July 2003

That's still a lot of wiggle room, but the website has also changed its mind: that answer has been removed, and those in charge of Star Trek seem less keen to dictate what does and doesn't count. That may be something to do with the recent Star Trek movies, which have seemingly rewritten history so that all the previous films and TV shows (except one) never happened. I can understand why fans, devoted to those films and TV shows, might not like that.

Instead, the trend seems to be more and more for what's called, not very elegantly, "head canon" - that everyone's free to decide on their own canon of what does and doesn't count in a franchise. Hmm.

Which brings me to Doctor Who. I have a vested interest here because I write Doctor Who books, comics and audio plays but have not written for the TV show. As a result, I'm haunted by the words that someone's spent an awful lot of time applying throughout Wikipedia:

"As with all spin-off media, the canonical status is debatable".

The thing is, there's never been a canon of Doctor Who. No one in authority has made a definitive statement on what does and doesn't count. It would be hard to work out who would be in authority over Doctor Who anyway - does a current head writer or producer get to dictate the terms of use over previous eras of the show? Does the BBC today get to make a rule that Peter Cushing doesn't count as the Doctor when, in the mid-1960s, it was happy to license those films?

In fact, those in charge of making the show seem keen not to make any rules about what does and doesn't count. As I observed about Rose, the interior doors of the TARDIS since 2005 seem to steal from the Cushing films, just as the TV show has mined the books, audio plays and comics - and vice versa.

There are those who claim this is the TV show superseding the spin-off media, but there are times when what's done in the spin-offs is carried through to the TV show. (I gave the erstwhile Brigadier a knighthood in spin-off story The Coup; he was still Sir Alistair when he returned to TV.)

I particularly like a moment from the brilliant The Waters of Mars, where outgoing head writer Russell T Davies is careful not to bind the hands of his successor. The story hinges on the Doctor not being able to change the events of a key moment in history - what he calls a "fixed point in time". We're quickly and inexpensively shown history being rewritten as if it were a page on Wikipedia.

But look how, a few scenes before that, the Doctor undercuts his own authority:

"This moment, this precise moment in time, it's like. I mean, it's only a theory, what do I know, but I think certain moments in time are fixed. Tiny, precious moments. Everything else is in flux, anything can happen, but those certain moments, they have to stand. This base on Mars with you, Adelaide Brooke, this is one vital moment. What happens here must always happen."

The Doctor, in The Waters of Mars by Russell T Davies and Phil Ford (2009).

It's what he believes, it's what matters for this story but it isn't necessarily a rule.

I think the same is true of The Day of the Doctor. Steven Moffat reveals that the Doctor never destroyed Gallifrey but, as far as the Ninth and Tenth Doctors are concerned, they did. All the effect on the character, all that emotional punch, remains and yet history is changed.

I'd argue that that is the opposite of what the new Star Trek films have done, and is all the better for it. That ending feels especially clever because it retains the past it rewrites. It's both having the cake and eating it.

If those in charge don't dictate a canon, then there isn't a canon at all. You might want a canon of your own, but you lack the authority to impose it on anyone else - and if that's the case, is there any point in having it in the first place?

Besides, Doctor Who is better when none of us own it - even the people making it do so on trust - and we have to share.

Next episode: 2010

Doctor Who: 2008

Episode 750: The Stolen Earth
First broadcast 7.10 pm on Saturday 28 June 2008
<< back to 2007

"I'm regenerating..."
Doctor Who: The Stolen Earth (2008)

These days, most episodes of Doctor Who tell a new story, in a new setting and with new supporting characters. But until 1989, stories took weeks to unfold - a season was made up of a handful of stories, each one made up of episodes.

Some stories went on for many months: The Daleks' Master Plan (1965-6) was a single story that ran for 12 weeks; The War Games (1969) ran for 10 and The Trial of a Time Lord (1986) for 14 - longer than any run of episodes since the series came back in 2005.

Of course, most stories were a lot shorter. The number of episodes varied but for the first 11 years of the series, six episodes was the most common, and then four-episode stories predominated. I think that's important: even back then, stories were getting shorter.

That's partly down to developments in production and some clever organisation: in the 1980s, producer John Nathan-Turner would split a six-episode production block into two stories - a four and a two, or two threes. But why would he want to?

First, ratings tended to dip in the midst of a story. Viewers were more likely to tune in to the first or final episodes. But also, I think we've got more literate as an audience. We're quicker to absorb and process information from the screen.

Watching old TV now, it's surprising how slow and careful it can seem. Even action-packed dramas hold our hand through the plot, spelling out all the details. There are fewer scenes and more exposition. That's not just true of old Doctor Who: other dramas, soaps and even documentaries from the past are all much more sedate.

As a result, modern telly can pack much more into a shorter time. I don't think there's any less plot in a modern, 42-minute episode of Doctor Who than there was in 6x 25-minute episodes in the past. In fact, five of those episodes would have to remind the viewer of the plot and supporting characters. There's a lot of repetition.

But one big element of old Doctor Who that's been lost is the cliffhanger. In a story that unfolded over several weeks, each episode would end on our heroes in deadly peril or some incredible, shocking reveal. The idea of a cliffhanger was to ensure we'd tune in again the following week but, as I argued in my 2002 piece, it also made us active participants in the story. We'd guess what would happen next.

More than that, because a cliffhanger was meant to be thrilling and strange, leaving us with an indelible image for the next seven days as a hook to return for the next installment, some of Doctor Who's most effective and memorable moments are cliffhangers. A helpful fellow on YouTube has even selected his favourites:


Note that, as the video shows, there are cliffhangers in modern Doctor Who - and very good ones. It's just there are fewer of them now.

The new show does offer some compensations for the loss of cliffhangers. Each episode starts with a pre-titles sequences, usually something strange and scary to get us hooked. There are also ongoing 'arc' plots and mysteries to keep us watching the series and get us involved in guessing what might happen next.

But I miss cliffhangers. And the moment I've chosen from 2008 is one of the finest ever done. It's not just down to the emotional rollercoaster set up in the episode, the Doctor finally reunited with Rose only to be shot by a Dalek. It's not just all the things the story itself is doing to enthrall us. It's also how perfectly the secret was kept by the production team.

I had friends working on the series who'd previously dropped hints or accidentally spoilt things. All was silent from them. There was no one on Twitter or Facebook crowing about what they knew. And I spent the week being phoned or emailed by people I'd not spoken to in years - people I'd never even known were into Doctor Who - all desperate to know if I knew anything.

Surely, they all asked, there couldn't be a regeneration we didn't already know about.

(A few weeks before the episode was broadcast, there'd been sneaky pictures from the filming of the Doctor Who Christmas special, showing David Tennant and David Morrissey. Morrissey was dressed in Doctorish clothes. I wondered if in fact the production team had tricked us - and here was Tennant visiting or playing a ghost in his successor's next episode.)

Something similar happened in the last few weeks with The Day of the Doctor, but without there being a cliffhanger. Again, the secrets were kept and the story was much more effective. Paul McGann (in the mini-episode), Tom Baker and Peter Capaldi, and that line-up of the Doctors at the end... Each worked because we didn't expect it. And I love the idea of the episode being shown at the same time in 94 countries, too: a shared experience, where we reach the surprises together.

So it's not the pre-title sequences and arc plots that most compensate for the lost cliffhanger of old. Rather, in a world where filming is followed closely by fan paparazzi and the papers delight in ruining what's to come, there's a delicious thrill in not knowing what's coming next.

"No press previews or Bafta screenings!"
A manifesto from Gary Gillatt, 24 Nov 13

Next episode: 2009

On the appeal of the Escapist

Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (2000) is an extraordinary joy of book, one I shall buy for friends and relations for some time to come.

It's the tale of two teenage boys in the late 1930s, one a fey dreamer who's grown up in New York, the other his cousin who's just escaped the Nazis in Prague. Together, they create a new superhero comic, imbued (though they're not quite aware of it) with their own hopes and fears. "The Escapist" is a huge success, at least in terms of sales, but the boy still have battles to fight - Clay with his whole identity, Kavalier in trying to rescue his family from Europe...

We follow their efforts to produce good work and not be ripped off by the management, and see them fall in love, suffer the most terrible calamities and live through momentous history. It's a huge book - 636 pages, spanning more than a decade, epic in scale and geography but also great on the tiny detail. We're peppered with all sorts of data on the comics scene and New York and culture and world of the time. Stan Lee has a cameo role, as does Orson Welles.

It's funny and moving and utterly absorbing - one of those rare, perfect books that you want to race through and yet don't ever want to reach the end.

Then, in the last section, it pulls an extraordinary trick of making you aware of the themes underlying all that's befallen our heroes. It's the coming-of-age for these two geeky kids but there's something more profound. This is the story not only of the Escapist but the escapist artform.

"Having lost [things he's lost], the usual charge leveled against comic books, that they offered merely an escape from reality, seemed to Joe actually to be a powerful argument on their behalf."

Michael Chabon, The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (2000), p. 575.

The defence of the escapist could have brought the whole thing crashing down, but its expertly done. I thought, as I started it, that it was ironic that a book about trash culture form had won such a serious accolade as the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2001. That validation of the form is not only well deserved, it's also the whole point.

Doctor Who: 2007

Episode 733: Blink
First broadcast: 7.10 pm on Saturday 9 June 2007
<< back to 2006

The Doctor explains in Blink

Blink is something special in Doctor Who. For some it's the best ever episode, for others it's the one to show someone who's never seen the show before and ensure they're hooked.

I don't think the latter is quite right. A bit like City of Death (1979), part of the brilliance of Blink is how it plays with expectations and clichés, and the usual form of Doctor Who. If we know Doctor Who, it's more rewarding. That's why it helps that it's some way into the run - it wouldn't work earlier on in Season 3; it wouldn't work in Season 1.

(Much better, I think, for a novice to begin with season opener Smith and Jones, but surely a novice ought to start from Rose.)

The wheeze is to show what happens when the Doctor isn't around to stop the monsters - an idea used again to great effect in the following year's Turn Left. Instead, here it's up to two ordinary people - Sally and Larry - to work their way through the clues.

Since they're not familiar with the format of Doctor Who like we are, we're often a few steps ahead of them. We know to be worried as they walk into danger. We know to shout at the screen. Our own knowledge of the series makes the episode more scary.

But, on first viewing, even we are lost in the intricacies of the plot. A story like this depends on a sort of contract between writer and viewer. We agree to accept the strange, confusing world we've been landed in on the promise that it will be explained. In fact, we're given all the clues we need to solve the mystery - we just don't realise it yet.

The best example of that is right at the end, when it seems the Doctor has abandoned Sally and Larry, the TARDIS dematerialising round them, leaving them to the mercy of the Angels. It's heart-stopping stuff, the Doctor seemingly callous, Sally and Larry with no chance of escape...

But, once the solution is presented, it seems to desperately, wretchedly simple. We realise it's clearly been signposted all the way through the episode. Of course that's how to get out it.

My chum James Goss once described the six episodes (including Blink) that Steven Moffat wrote for Russell T Davies as,

"perfect puzzle boxes, full of heart and drama but also where every single bit of the mystery is in place like clockwork."

That "heart and drama" is exactly right. The Doctor and Martha appear in just three scenes of Blink but we get a great sense of their relationship. I can readily imagine a whole episode - or series - of them stranded in the 1960s, an exasperated Martha forced to take a day-job to support his building contraptions that might help them get home.

Best of all is how concisely the complex plot is spelled out in simple terms. So much of Doctor Who is exposition, building worlds and politics and problems from little more than words. There are tricks to getting through it - the Doctor says it at great speed, or peppers it with odd asides full of jokes and weird mental images, or the companion shares some of the burden.

Blink does a trick with exposition that still utterly thrills me. It's so simple, so quick, so what a real person would say. The Doctor holds up an all-important gadget, vital to him solving the problem at the heart of the episode. And explains:

"It goes ding when there's stuff."

Next episode: 2008 

Doctor Who: 2006

Episode 713: School Reunion
First broadcast 7.20 pm on Saturday 29 April 2006
<< back to 2005

Rose and Sarah Jane
School Reunion

School Reunion is the only episode of Doctor Who to have made me shed tears. I know a few burly, tough chums who were also left in pieces because of what happens to K-9, but that's not the bit that affected me.

It's a brilliant episode, perfectly playing to two audiences at once. For younger viewers, there's evil teachers, jokes about chips and an awkward kid who becomes a hero by rebelling at school. For older viewers, it's about the awful longing to recapture the past, the fact that we can't go back and that none of us are getting any younger. By bringing back former companion Sarah Jane Smith, the series lets Rose (and us) know that she's not the first girl in the TARDIS - and, implicitly, that she won't be the last, so neatly laying the ground for her departure at the end of this season.

At the time of broadcast, I'd just got back from a holiday and the next big event in my diary was my 30th birthday. That milestone had quite crept up on me. Plus, while I'd been away a member of my family had taken a sudden turn for the worse.

So the following scene, perfectly played by Lis Sladen, seemed harrowingly, bleakly true. I blogged at the time hot it got in my head. Looking back now, with Sladen gone, it is all the more haunting.

FINCH:
Think of it, Doctor. With the Paradigm solved, reality becomes clay in our hands. We can shape the universe and improve it.

DOCTOR:
Oh yeah? The whole of creation with the face of Mister Finch? Call me old fashioned, but I like things as they are.

FINCH:
You act like such a radical, and yet all you want to do is preserve the old order? Think of the changes that could be made if this power was used for good.

DOCTOR:
What, by someone like you?

FINCH:
No, someone like you. The Paradigm gives us power, but you could give us wisdom. Become a God at my side. Imagine what you could do. Think of the civilisations you could save. Perganon, Assinta. Your own people, Doctor, standing tall. The Time Lords reborn.

SARAH:
Doctor, don't listen to him.

FINCH:
And you could be with him throughout eternity. Young, fresh, never wither, never age, never die. Their lives are so fleeting. So many goodbyes. How lonely you must be, Doctor. Join us.

DOCTOR:
I could save everyone.

FINCH:
Yes.

DOCTOR:
I could stop the war.

SARAH:
No. The universe has to move forward. Pain and loss, they define us as much as happiness or love. Whether it's a world, or a relationship, everything has its time. And everything ends.

Toby Whithouse, Doctor Who: School Reunion (2006).

A very young 10th Doctor,
staring into the abyss.

Next episode: 2007

Doctor Who: 2005

Episode 697: Rose

First broadcast 7 pm, Saturday 26 March 2005
<< back to 2004

Rose enters the TARDIS for the first time

It's a brilliant scene. Rose and her new friend the Doctor are being chased by a monster. They're stuck in a back yard and the gates are locked. But the Doctor doesn't seem worried, he just strides into a tall blue box. Rose, baffled, follows him into the police box and stops short - just inside the doors. We don't see what she's seen. Then she runs back out again, and runs around the outside of the police box, checking it's not a trick. She runs back inside and the camera pulls back, the music swells, and we see the vast interior, the new TARDIS control room.

It's a brilliant scene but totally ruined by the trailers and publicity pictures released the week before broadcast showing the new TARDIS set.

Publicity is tricky: how much do you show to grab an audience but not spoil the surprises? As Gary Gillatt said of Day of the Doctor this weekend:

Wise words from Gary Gillatt

Perhaps that could only work a show that's already established a popular following, and Rose needed all the attention it could get. That original trailer for the return of Doctor Who is amazing, too. But how much better would the experience of watching Rose for the first time have been if we'd not known what the TARDIS interior looked like until Rose did?

I know the answer to that, because I first watched Rose more than two weeks before it was broadcast, before the TARDIS set had been seen. An early cut of the episode had found its way on to the internet, which I had manfully not downloaded (partly due to it being wrong, mostly due to be not knowing how). But then an evil friend I won't name handed me a copy burned onto a disc, and I was too weak to resist. On Wednesday 9 March, the Dr and I watched it together. Here's what I wrote at the time...

"I just loved it ... [The Dr] watched it too (though she was more excited by the prospect of new episodes of 24, and she's keener on Casanova than she is on Droo). She said she'd not hesitate to dump her boyfriend for the bloke with the time machine, so she could go see the Parthenon ...

The TARDIS looks great; a nice mix of stuff. There's a certain Jules Verne-ness to it, but also various Dr Who elements. The time rotor is from the TV movie, the interior doors from the Cushing films, etc. I love the inclusiveness of that. It's all Dr Who....

In fact, the TV movie has several influences: the rollicking TARDIS-in-vortex shots, the swirl of air when the TARDIS dematerialises... More importantly, that sense of the 'epic'. Old Dr Who was often up-close and intimate, with the Radiophonic Workshop famously speaking of 'inner turmoil'. The TV movie was much more 'Da daaa!' and orchestral. The use of human voices is part of that, but there's also the stings as scenes change. Does that make sense?

Talking to [another friend who'd seen it] last night, we agreed the direction is a bit flat. I loved the Doctor shouting 'leg it' to Rose, but when they're racing from the Autons in that first scene together, or across Dalek Bridge in Westminster, you don't really get a sense of urgency. They're running, yes, but not for their lives. Peter Davison is still best at Urgent Running. Also, as has been said, that spotting-the-transmitter needed one less frame...

[In the broadcast episode, there was indeed one less shot of the Doctor's bafflement before recognising the London Eye.]

But there are some nicely iconic moments: the wedding-dressed Autons, Mickey's head coming off, even the wheelie bin. I think it's a really funny idea, a wheelie bin eating someone. And is Billie's line about breast implants a nod to SynthespiansTM? I hope so.

I like the silliness. I really like the silliness. I will not repeat my views on the difference between stupidity and silliness ...

Rose getting into the car with Mickey and not knowing he's an Auton is cool. We know something is up, even though she doesn't. That's suspense. But it also means we believe in the Doctor before she does.

We get a staggering amount on information: the war, the Nestenes, the TARDIS (the disguise!), the Doctor, the sonic screwdriver, time travel, aliens, diplomacy... And Rose has got family and a life! Bloody hell, she's really got a life back home that matters. It means something. It's still boggling just how much of a departure that is.

Shame that Clive's stash of Who stuff didn't include pictures of Other Doctors - even in a spot-them-if-you-can-in-the-background way. I assumed, too, that all those pictures of the Doctor in the past are from his future. (I like the idea, for example, that he and Rose can visit Krakatoa now, and she'll know he washes up on Sumatra.)

The Doctor looking in the mirror is definitely for the first time - he doesn't know what he looks like, and the 'ears' gag (perfect for Eccles) is a steal from Robot. So, is this his regeneration story, but we've just come in mid-way through?

Not too worried about the 'vanillaness' of the episode [a complaint others had made]. It's pretty straightforward a beginning, but with plenty of room to move afterwards. I think J Morris once said that the TV movie didn't feel like a new beginning, but [in my opinion] Rose does. I want desperately to see more."

Next episode: 2006 

Doctor Who: 2004

After episode 696 (Doctor Who): the first day of filming on the new series
Sunday, 18 July 2004
<< back to 2003

Eccleston and the Space Pig
My feature for
Doctor Who Adventures #277

Hidden away in the archives of the official BBC Doctor Who website, there's a fun video of a press conference with Christopher Eccleston from just before the new series was broadcast. One question is about his first day of filming.

"My first day, I chased a brilliant actor of restricted height called Jimmy Vee dressed as a pig dressed as a spaceman... I had to chase him up and down a corridor."

I adore the space pig. It's brief time in Doctor Who is a perfect example of the show as written by Russell T Davies - daft, funny, exciting, scary and moving all in one quick scene. I badgered the poor then editor of Doctor Who Adventures, Natalie Barnes, to let me run a feature on the space pig and she finally relented. (She also gave kind permission to post it here.)

But I also know exactly where I was when the scene was filmed. On Sunday, 18 July 2004, Big Finish held a party to celebrate five years of new audio adventures for old Doctor Who. I'd written a few short stories for them and was busy writing my first audio play, so got to go along - the first posh drinks I was ever invited to as a writer.

Before I was lost to the miasma of free fizz, I met actors Lisa Bowerman and Stephen Fewell for the first time, who I'd late be boss of on the Benny plays. And a young actor I'd seen on the telly said "Thanks, mate" to me. It was David Tennant.

Next episode: 2005

Doctor Who: 2003

After episode 696 (Doctor Who): the announcement that the show was coming back
Friday, 26 September 2003
<< back to 2002

Nicholas Courtney, Mark Gatiss,
David Warner and David Tennant
in Doctor Who in 2003.

Imagine: a Doctor we never knew about before, one played by an acting legend, in a story with David Tennant and Lethbridge-Stewart - all to celebrate the show's anniversary.

Sympathy for the Devil was part of Big Finish's effort to mark Doctor Who's 40th birthday. It was recorded on 23 March 2003 and released in June - months before the announcement on 26 September that the show would be returning to TV.

Yet despite the surface similarities to whatever might happen in The Day of the Doctor this evening, that audio story is from another age. As the whole BBC marks the anniversary this weekend, and crowds fill events round the country, I find myself dwelling on what it was like before the show came back.

Doctor Who was not highly thought of. In April 2002, a studio audience agreed with former BBC boss Michael Grade to consign the series to Room 101. It wasn't just the general public putting the boot in, but sci-fi fans, too:

"In short, Doctor Who exists as science fiction's imbecile, its rudimentary intelligence a somewhat tragic counterpoint to its often brilliant and salient parent."

Peter Wright, “The Shared World of Doctor Who: from the New Adventures to the Regeneration”, Foundation – The International Review of Science Fiction #75 (Spring 1999), pp. 78-96.

Wright's paper was about the Doctor Who books - the ones aimed at adult readers. Even so, and whether or not his views have changed since, I can't imagine an editor today would let that statement go unchallenged.

(I assumed the then features editor would have overseen it, but Farah Mendlesohn assures me it was peer reviewed: "Oh good, not me or Edward! I spent my own childhood glued to the programme. But I've always had low tastes.")

At the time, Foundation's then editor, Edward James, asked me to respond (I'd just completed a Masters in sci-fi under him at the time), and I singled out that "imbecile" statement:

“I've experienced too much terrible sf to be content with that, though maybe it's inevitable, as a fanboy, that I think the differences between sf and Doctor Who less pertinent than their similarities. Sometimes the stories are really, excruciatingly awful. Sometimes they are so startlingly good that people who 'don't normally like that sort of thing' can be wholly captivated. On the whole though, like sf, they are okay enough to keep bothering with. And the thing about unfulfilled potential is that you live in hope.”

Me, letter to Foundation – The International Review of Science Fiction #77 (Autumn 1999), p. 94.

My po-faced response makes me cringe now, not least because my defence is merely that the books were "okay enough", accepting from the outset that the show was not very good before trying to justify why I still liked it.

I spent a lot of time apologising for liking Doctor Who. In the years up to 2005 the Dr would tell people at parties that I was a Doctor Who fan. I'd then spend the rest of the evening stuck in the same spot, defending my position in the face of sheer disbelief and ghoulish interest. When the show came back and it was no longer so weird to like it, the Dr got cross that she couldn't always find me.

I wasn't the only one to feel the need to explain. Last night, a whole special edition of The Culture Show was devoted to celebrating Doctor Who, presented by my chum Matthew Sweet. But on 17 March 2005, just before Doctor Who returned, Matthew was a lot more cagey about his devotion:

“For years now, men like me have been forced to walk in the shadows, to hide our true natures, to lie to our partners about those videos and magazines, to identify each other with secret coded references to The Talons of Weng-Chiang... But all that may be about to change...”

Matthew Sweet, preview of Doctor Who on The Culture Show, 17 March 2005.

It's a funny, insightful piece, worth watching again to see how much things have changed.



Next episode: 2004

Doctor Who: 2002

After episode 696 (Doctor Who): "Screen Test"
First published in Doctor Who Magazine #315 (3 April 2002)
<< back to 2001

Daryl Joyce's artwork for my
Doctor Who Magazine feature

In 2002, I had my first work of Doctor Who fiction published - a short story, "The Switching" in which the Master escapes from prison by swapping bodies with the Doctor. I also had my first article published in Doctor Who Magazine - and it made the cover, no less.

Thanks to current editor Tom Spilsbury for permission to post it in full. Thanks to then editor Clayton Hickman for heroic patience in dealing with this very green hack. And thanks to Daryl Joyce for the amazing artwork.

Screen Test

A new Doctor Who movie! Cor, that'd be good, wouldn't it? In the first of a two-part feature, Simon Guerrier examines the show's previous big screen dabbling. And frets, frankly...

One

Too broad and too deep for the small screen? Hardly! For years, the official statement from the BBC has been the same: Doctor Who is not being made on television because it's 'being developed as a film'. Anthony Hopkins is hotly tipped to be the new Doctor Who! Pamela Anderson will join him in the TARDIS! The script could well be written by Russell T Davies! And the special effects will rival Hollywood!

So, why the fuss? What does a film do, and why would you want to inflict it on a sweet little television programme like Doctor Who?

For one thing, a film is more of an 'event' than a standard television programme. Television channels fill the schedules on public holidays with films as a special treat for viewers, something 'better' than everyday programming. Films are right up there there with new episodes of Only Fools and Horses and extra-length, especially angsty editions of EastEnders as far as Christmas highlights are concerned. Films are something to get excited about. They're more glamorous. They tell a big story and, more often than not, they need a big budget to tell it. Films are, let's face it, still perceived as something rather exciting.

So, if the BBC want to reintroduce Doctor Who in a high-profile way, reminding the general public of what they've been missing all these years, it's only natural that they'd rather bring it back as a film than a television show, right? Even if that film is a 'television movie', it's still more 'exciting', more of a 'special event' than a single installment of a serial. In fact, many television dramas begin with a feature-length pilot to draw in an audience and get them to commit to the continuing series. Making a film version of a television show means money: more money for location filming than a budget for television drama can offer, more money for effects, more money for casting, more money for everything.

DWM #315 (2002)

You'd think, then, that a film would automatically be better and more successful. The TV series write large. But is Doctor Who really suited to the big screen? The show has been there before, of course: there were two films released in the cinema by Aaru in the mid 1960s. There have also been two feature-length special television films: a 90-minute anniversary special, The Five Doctors, in 1983 and a television movie in 1996 starring Paul McGann. The Five Doctors is a special case, though - made by the same production team as produced the television series, in a gap between seasons, and following a season that had been four episodes short. Many fans lump it in with Season Twenty anyway, rather than seeing it as a stand-alone project. They view it as a four-parter that's had its cliffhangers removed.

And that's just four films out of no end of could-have-beens. There had been hopes for a third Dalek movie in the late 1960s; Tom Baker was involved in trying to make Doctor Who Meets Scratchman during the 1970s; and the late 1980s and 1990s seemed rife with aborted projects. So many, in fact, that Jean-Marc Lofficier even wrote a programme guide about them!

But for a show that ran for so many years on TV, four(ish) films isn't that fantastic a track record. And it's a shame, because the television series proved massively successful. It may have been taken off the air in 1989 for low ratings and perceived lack of public interest, yet today it continues to be held in fond regard by the general public. It is featured in the top tens of no end of nostalgia shows and makes front page news whenever a new candidate for the role of the Doctor is proposed. And anyway, you're reading the official magazine, so of course you know the show's super.

But not the films, it's seems. "A lot of people forget that there's been two movies," said Roberta Tovey, the film incarnation of Susan, in a 1993 interview. And "Paul McGann doesn't count" was the decree of Vince, the Doctor Who fan in hit Channel 4 drama Queer as Folk. Published critiques of Doctor Who, both professional and semi-professional, pretty much ignore the films altogether. According to the 2001 Radio Times Guide to Science Fiction, the first Dalek movie lacks the "bite and inventiveness that set the landmark series apart." Why? Why couldn't the Dalek films achieve the same lasting success as the television series? Yes, the films have their fans, but not fans with the same kind of lifetime commitment that the television version managed. Surely there are some lessons that can be learned?

It must be said, adapting any format to film is contentious. And 'adapting' is the important word here. You couldn't just take a successful TV story - Pertwee favourite The Daemons, say - re-film the original script and stick it on at your local multiplex. There would be a million-and-one cuts to make, actors to cast and factors to 're-imagine' (to begrudgingly use modern parlance). Oh, and you'd have to bung the Daleks in it, of course.

Recently, two different series of best-selling novels made the leap to the big screen. There is some argument about whether The Fellowship of the Ring and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone are as dynamic, rich and epic an experience as the books that inspired them. What can't be argued is how successful the films have proven. Adaptation of a story from one format to another is always going to mean things get changed. Sometimes for practical reasons (The Fellowship of the Ring would have been an even longer film if they'd included the character of Tom Bombadil from the book), and sometimes just as a matter of personal judgement (Tom Bombadil's a rubbish character anyway!).

The first two Doctor Who movies, Dr Who and the Daleks (1965) and Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD (1966), are adaptations of two of the most influential serials from the early days of the television show. The Daleks secured the longevity of Doctor Who, and they massively influenced the direction the show would take. It soon put away its educational aspirations, and concentrated on the Doctor helping gangs of rebels to fight off invading monsters. The films were released at a time of 'Dalekmania', and were just part of a massive marketing exploitation of the robot monsters' popularity. They remain such an integral part of the show that any Doctor Who film simply has to include them: Terrance Dicks insisted they got a cameo in The Five Doctors, and Philip Segal had them (out-of-shot, admittedly) at the start of the TV Movie. Doctor Who Meets Scratchman was set to be a gripping tale about Vincent Price and an army of killer scarecrows terrorising the English countryside [see DWM 296], but the production team still sought a deal with Terry Nation to get the Daleks in the picture. Perhaps they'd have been running the pub?

Two

The 1960s Dalek films were part of a tradition in British cinema at the time. The British film industry had been losing audiences because of competition from television, and the adaptations of the Dalek stories followed the success of Hammer's The Quatermass X-periment. This, too, was an adaptation of a BBC television serial, and had proved that exploiting the narratives television had to offer was one way to draw the punters back to the big screen. And what the films do is very simple: they take a story that has been very successful on the small screen, and retell it in a way that could never be envisioned on anything but a big screen. From the trailer for Dr Who and the Daleks, you can clearly see how, in the UK at least, the films pushed the idea of better, bigger, more exciting Daleks. "Now you can see them in colour on the big screen - closer than ever before," it proclaims. Indeed, the film's design is far more sumptuous than anything the BBC could have afforded. Skaro is bigger, bolder and brighter, - nothing is left to the viewers' imaginations.

That doesn't necessarily mean that what we see makes sense. For instance, why do the Daleks decorate their city with colourful drapes and lava lamps? They aren't consistent with what we know of their characters. It's that 'bigger is better' attitude again, making everything on screen look as sumptuous as possible. On the flipside, there's no realism - no attempt to lend credibility to what's going on. It's got to be said that big budget effects sequences often get in the way of the sense. Why do the events of the TV Movie happen? Why does the Master do what he does? Chiefly, it's to ensure there's a motorbike chase, plus a lot of time spent in the lavishly redecorated TARDIS. In The Five Doctors, the Cybermen are supposedly banned  from the Death Zone because they 'play too well'. But is there one single shred of evidence of that on screen? No, they're there just as Raston robot-fodder. Not that one could argue that the television series always made sense itself ...

Aaru's license from the Beeb meant the TARDIS could look like a police box and that they could use Ray Cusick's smashing designs for the Daleks; but the license didn't include the use of Peter Brachacki's TARDIS interior. As a result, the controls that Dr Who (that's the name of the character Peter Cushing plays) gets to push are wild and whizzy, but they're just not the same. The console is at the heart of Brachacki's design, the thinking being that one man could operate the controls if they were grouped around a central point. One man could arguably operate Dr Who's movie TARDIS, but he'd likely fall over a three-bar fire, get covered in mercury and throttle himself with wires if he had to do anything complicated! The console is such a recognisable constituent of the TARDIS, that both The Five Doctors and the 1996 TV Movie follow their opening credits by lingering over a newly-refurbished and extra-specially spangley version. And as it happens, from the outset, both these later films also assume we know that the great big console room fits inside the little police box.

The Dalek films, you see, start the story again from scratch, explain everything as if it's entirely new. Doctor Who was less than two years old on television when the first of them was released, so the series had nothing like the established history it does now. The Five Doctors and the TV Movie both feature past television Doctors to underline that they're a continuation of the old show, and Lofficier's The Nth Doctor guide includes notes on how most of the 1990s film proposals attempted to fit into - and expand upon - what had gone before. The Dalek films didn't rely on pre-knowledge of the television series to tell the story, even if they used it to market the films in the UK. The origins of the characters are retold, the adventure begun again. It's been made especially accessible to those who might have missed or never even heard of the programme. And it isn't the television programme. Very consciously, it does things differently.

For a kick-off, the two Dalek films eschew Ron Grainer's legendary theme tune. Both films use orchestral music, which is a much more recognisable and earthly sound than that which introduced the television show. The first film's slow, jazzy rhythm suggests mystery and anticipation, while Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD has a much more upbeat, exciting tempo, suggesting action and adventure. The second film also has a 'comic' but exciting pre-title sequence, which precipitates our involvement in the engaging score. Neither theme tune, however, has the alien and frightening quality of the television version. Interestingly, the TV Movie used Ron Grainer's original, but arranged it using orchestral, recognisable, 'earthly' instruments.

Three

Right from the beginning, the Dalek films positively glory in doing things beyond the TV series' means. Colour television at the time was almost unheard of, but colour here is just one factor in the great sense of the spectacular which the films have. In Dr Who and the Daleks, there are breathtaking establishing shots of the strange landscape of Skaro; special effects allowing us to see alien mountains and alien moons. The second film prominently features a terrific Dalek ship - convincing model effects that outstrip the 'paper plate on a string' offered by the BBC.

But while the films may laud it over television's weaknesses, the authors of the seminal academic work Doctor Who: The Unfolding Text argue that the television medium itself is essential to the early progress of Doctor Who. For one thing, in dialogue from the very first episode, television is used to explain the TARDIS' interior being bigger than its exterior. As the Doctor says, an enormous building fits into a sitting room when that building is shown on television. The Unfolding Text argues that "television's own discourse of the world made intimate and instantaneous" is used to avoid the need for a "plausible scientific explanation."

The films don't use the television model, and bluff a "plausible scientific explanation" instead: "In electro-kinetic theory, space expands to accommodate the time necessary to encompass its dimensions." There is an equally silly explanation for the TARDIS in the second film. None of the explanations - including the television one - are really 'scientific' at all. But while the television series offers a simple parallel to explain away the conceit, the Dalek films legitimise their fantastic prop with technobabble. They use big words they think will wow the audience, just as they use big images and effects. Similarly, the TV Movie refers to the TARDIS 'cloaking device' - a technobabble quotation lifted directly from Star Trek.

But more importantly, reckons The Unfolding Text, when the series began, the television Doctor represented a new age of television drama. He's not a standard hero, whose values and codes are obvious from the start: he's a strange and dangerous man of mystery. In the television episodes, there was time for dialogue, for characters to disagree and argue their course of action. The films do not have that luxury. In the television serials, the Daleks are opposed by a diverse range of characters: the Doctor and his companions, aided by assorted Thal, mutant and human representatives - despite the arguments and differences amongst these allies. In the films, In the films,the few who disagree with Dr Who are usually persuaded or conveniently die. The values he fights for are not discussed or debated on screen. He's not dangerous or mysterious and, as the Sunday Telegraph of the time put it, is "a pale shadow of the TV grouch."

No, he's much more straightforward a hero, like the The Eagle's comic strip pilot of the future, Dan Dare. According to The Unfolding Text, the TV Doctor is "an alien, an outsider". Dare, meanwhile, was "always an insider, with the code of honour and refusal to lie that was the mark of the English ruling 'Public School' culture."

Whereas being an 'outsider' is what often drives the early TV episodes, 'respectability' is crucial to the ethos of the Dalek films. In the second film, Dr Who dutifully aids the policeman, Tom, by taking him back in time to avert a bank robbery we have already witnessed. It's all very amusing and heart-warming, I'm sure, but the television series never used the notion of time travel so glibly. The morality of changing history was always dealt with much more problematically - not least because if the Doctor can later travel back in time and change the way events occurred, there's never going to be any genuine sense of conflict in his adventures. Dr Who ignores such complex issues to assist the police and do his duty as a 'responsible citizen.'

The first film is also about maintaining a 'stiff upper lip'. The Thals must overcome fear of war and of the Daleks. Iam must overcome his cowardice. As Alan Barnes said back in DWM's Spring Special, "it is [Ian's] only act of true bravery which causes the ultimate destruction of the Daleks."

Actor Barrie Ingham, who played Alydon in Dr Who and the Daleks, recalls that The Daily Worker called the first film, "a rather Blimpish and militaristic sort of thing, in which pacifists were actually persuaded to become warlike." The dictionary definition of 'Blimpish' is "stupidly complacent and reactionary." The two films show the same rather naive and simplified attack on the un-British as can be seen in early British World War Two films. In his 1974 book, Films and the Second World War, Roger Manvell identifies films with the "unrealistic tendency to regard Hitler as an absurdity" until the full horrors of war lead to pictures with "a far grimmer sense of actuality." As he goes on, "[The British] were determined, initially at least, to remain cultured and gentlemanly in the face of an enemy whom they despised as uncouth - not in fact a gentleman at all."

Certainly, the Daleks are demonised for their unBritishness. They lack the gentlemanly credentials of Dr Who and his companions: they do not speak 'properly' (with the enunciated accents of the rest of the cast), and lack politeness. Ian's joke, "Excuse me, Mr Dalek, would you care to move on to this cape?" parodies their lack of manners. The Daleks are also voyeurs, watching their human captives and manipulating what they overhear. It's all terribly improper!

Four

If the films change the Doctor's values and character, they also affect the reasons he stands against the Daleks; the oppositions being more clear cut. The Daleks are diametrically opposed to whatever values Dr Who (and his followers) represent: they are intolerant not tolerant, inhuman not human, scientific not natural (or agricultural), hierarchic not communitive, hard not soft, the 'new' not the 'old', unwelcoming not polite, collective not individual, hating not compassionate, paranoid not trusting.

It's worth making the point that one of the main reasons for the success and longevity of the Daleks is their simplicity. Without us getting too clever for ourselves, the academic Jonathan Bignell, in his book Media Studies - An Introduction, argues that "situation comedies exaggerate characters' social codes of behaviour so that they become excessive, inappropriate and therefore comic." The excitement that the Daleks conjure is something similar, except that their exaggerated behaviour make the Daleks frightening, not funny; the identification of these traits connotes horror and fear. And yet, because the exaggerated traits are still recognisable traits, and ones that the audience can identify with, the Daleks' terror is memorable and effective. They may be simplistic, but we know why they do what they do.

On big screen and small, the Daleks are ciphers rather than characters - but in the two Dalek films, so are all the other characters. The television show quickly learned that Daleks are boring conversationalists, so gave other characters interesting lines. Humans working for the Daleks, or with the Daleks, or who created the Daleks in the first place, have the vocal range to argue the ethics of their position. But in the films, everyone's a cipher. None of the characters are interesting, they're all bland stereotypes. We are offered very little as to what Dalek culture and life are actually like, but that's no different from what we can glean about the Thals, or human society in 2150 AD.

There are very simple and basic parameters to the cultures we are shown in the films, and the landscapes are very small. There is occasional reference to other places, but really we see very little of these future worlds, this despite the number of special effects 'glass shots' and other wizardry to show off the alien landscapes. In the first film, we see only Dr Who's contemporary house, and then the area within and surrounding the Dalek City. In the second, we have a contemporary London street, and then London and Bedford of the 22nd Century. It's a very small, unrepresentative area. There is no interest in making the future worlds complex or layered in any way. Rather, the emphasis is on having exciting-looking locations for Dr Who and his friends to have their adventures in.

The only thing the Dalek films do want to tell us something about is Dr Who himself. The first film opens with Dr Who and his family sitting at home, reading quietly. He has a house, a very definite location. This is completely at odds with the perpetually wandering Doctor of the television series. In fact, it goes against the conscious effort to make the 'different' - unfixed and dislocated. This was set up in the very first episode, when Susan's school teachers decide to investigate her home life. Not only does Dr Who have a fixed home in London (well, I'm assuming his house doesn't roll along on wheels), but he is also human. And, just to make him even less 'different' and more familiar, he has a larger family than he did on television: a second granddaughter and a niece. Dr Who is always very kind to his companions, whereas the television Doctor could be difficult and rude. In the TV series, even the Doctor's companions are quick to question his actions. In the films, though, Barbara and Ian no longer serve the purpose of "educating the Doctor to maturity and responsibility" as they do on television. If anything, the film Dr Who is the teacher, encouraging his granddaughter's scientific curiosity, and enabling Ian to overcome his fears. He is, unlike his television predecessor, 'respectable'. He is not difficult and unreadable, but charming and predictable. Alan Barnes summed him perfectly in the aforementioned DWM Special: "He never behaves in a manner befitting anything less than a gentleman."

For all the preaching about good and evil we can identify in television Doctor Who, it is far more obvious in the films. Dr Who shares many of Dan Dare's polemic and assuring qualities. He is a traditional, conservative, human character, who takes us away on entertaining flights of fancy where the un-British are dealt with righteously and decisively. It is telling that our first sight of the film Dr Who has him happily reading The Eagle.

Five

The television viewer is expected and encouraged to be 'active' in watching the Doctor's adventures: problematic and unpredictable characterisation means that he or she is often wrong-footed. The values and characters in the films are simplistic, meanwhile, are simplistic, uncomplicated, black-and-white. We are, therefore, less involved. The television episodes also encourage 'active' viewing in that their cliff-hanger endings affect our anticipation of where the story will go next and how it will be resolved.

A little while ago, this magazine looked closely at the structure of the classic four-part Doctor Who story [see The Adventure Game, DWMs 296 to 302]. A feature film is at least 90 minutes long, so maybe the same structuring applies? Actually, no. Editing four episodes into a 90-minute whole by lopping off the titles (and maybe a scene or two) interferes with the pacing. Watching the omnibus EastEnders on a Sunday, you ride over the week's cliffhangers, but you know full well where they are; every 25 minutes there's a sudden, awkward break in tension and involvement. By the same token, The Five Doctors doesn't break seamlessly into quarters, whatever the repeats schedulers might think. There isn't enough tension and involvement after each 25-minute segment for a suitably dramatic 'break'. The narrative just stops. The stories aren't made for that format. The picaresque nature of the television series, where the Doctor and his companions move from one dilemma to the next, suits the television medium.

For the television series, audiences need to be enthralled for 25 minutes at a time, so a number of sensational moments are required in each episode. This is far too disorderly a structure for the films, where the 'plot' is not seen in segments but as a whole. As a result, in the Dalek movies of the 1960s, many of the digressions from the 'essential' story are absent. The Daleks don't get to destroy London in the films, and there's no rough and tumble round the campfire between Susan and David. The internal duration of the films' adventures as experienced by Peter Cushing's Dr Who is thus both briefer and more orderly; he spends less time in 2150 AD, and fewer things happen to him. Even if part of a longer movie 'series' (as is Harry Potter), films are a single episode long, and losing the television episodes' cliffhanger endings changes Doctor Who hugely. The episodes end at moments of crisis, of narrative peak, so as to secure the audience's return for the next installment of the story. The best examples, as Sophie Aldred once said, leave us begging: "How on earth is the assistant gonna get out of this one?"

You don't just watch Doctor Who on the television like it's eye-candy, you have to get involved. You are encouraged to anticipate resolutions. It's not just the final freeze-frames that stay with you for a week; if you're wondering how the Doctor¹s granddaughter will escape this time, you'll relive the story so far in your mind, looking back for clues in the episode as a whole. She's all alone in a spooky dead forest on an alien world! And something is after her! Will the TARDIS crew escape from the Dalek city to save her? What is she going to do? Whether or not you come up with your own neat solution, you'll still want to find out what happens next and so will tune in to see the solution that gets played out. (The monster in the forest is actually a nice blond man who just wants to ask after Susan¹s health. Ahh!) Although film will have exciting narrative peaks, the resolution must come in the same sitting. In the first Dalek film, we find out that Alydon's both a nice guy and snappy dresser five minutes after Susan ventures into the forest - not a whole week later - which is a lot less enthralling.

As we've seen, the translation from episodic installments to a single-episode film greatly changes the structure of the story being told. The first television Dalek story consisted of seven 25-minute episodes. The Dalek Invasion of Earth ran to six episodes. The introductions of the Doctor and his companions had been taken care of in a previous story, so the central characters and their relationships were already defined. The Dalek films are of 83 and 84 minutes duration respectively. Material from the television screenplays obviously had to be cut. On top of that, while these are ostensibly the same stories, the adaptations aren't slavishly adhering to the style and form of the original. The Dalek films 're-imagine' (sorry, that horrible George Lucas-y word again) the premise of the television series, making significant changes not only to the stories and characters, but also, perhaps as a result of these changes, to the ideologies, the kinds of values, expressed within them.

The films' representation of women is just one way we can reveal inherent ideologies. Only Dr Who's own grandchildren, Susan and Barbara, are active women. No Thal women take part in the offensive on the Daleks, beyond waving mirrors at them from the relative safety of the forest. In the second film, there is no Jenny, an important female character in the television version. The only substantial female characters in Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD are the avaricious old spinsters who betray Susan and Wyler. For future worlds, they are very chauvinistic.

But then Doctor Who has always had problems with its not-entirely-feminist agenda. Just look at how quickly the TV Movie's Grace Holloway moves from strong, independent surgeon to shrieking, wailing mess. In The Five Doctors, what do the girls do? Susan trips over and hurts her ankle. Tegan makes the tea. Sarah falls down a bit of a slope. Somehow it seems doubtful that Twiggy's character in Scratchman would have broken the mould substantially.

Six

The Dalek films have their meanings arranged neatly and their audiences are passive, consuming the narratives without being encouraged to think too deeply about the images, themes and ideologies presented. The films are assuring, nostalgic and easily-digestible escapist entertainment. The plots and monsters may be what was on television (or near enough), and the writers involved may be the same people who brought the Daleks to life for the BBC, but what's been lost in the transition to the big screen is the ongoing drama. The Dalek films are bright and fun and entertaining, but they don't make us want to come back for more. They've crammed the exciting television serial into a one-off adventure, where all the problems are solved within one hour-and-a-half sitting, and where even the enigma of the title character has been answered in the opening scenes of the first film. No wonder the name 'Dr Who' doesn't get a mention in the title of the second film - while in the television show 'Who?' is a question, in the film it's simply the lead character's surname!

And that's why the Dalek films haven't enjoyed ongoing interest like the television series has - they don't actually encourage it. They're stand-alone stories, and all the questions they raise are answered in a single sitting. Moreover, Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD, with a different title sequence, theme music and character line-up to the first film, isn't even sold as a continuation of the 'serial' featured in Dr Who and the Daleks. This is odd, because Doctor Who works best as a series - which is why the format has transcended television to work successfully in a series of comic-strips, books, CDs and webcasts. It's about travel; moving from place to place, and story to story. It's the very antithesis of the 'precinct' show, where the same characters stand around on the same sets each week. Everything about the Doctor Who format - it's lead character, its episodic structure, the TARDIS, time travel - are about not being constrained in any given space. The Dalek films' mistake is to assume they can retell Doctor Who in a single installment.

So how do you make a film that's part of the ongoing adventure, but also a stand-alone episode? That's big and exciting and special, and yet recognisably part of the old? That shares the themes and values and iconography of what's gone before, but dares to do something new?

With great difficulty, as we shall see ...

[I'll post the second part of the feature another time.]

Next episode: 2003

Doctor Who: 2001

After episode 696 (Doctor Who): Storm Warning
Released January 2001
<< back to 2000

The Big Finish Doctors face The Light at the End

Big Finish Productions Ltd began releasing new audio adventures for old Doctors Who in 1999. To begin with, they were new stories for the fifth, sixth and seventh Doctors. But late in 2000 they announced that Paul McGann's eighth Doctor would be joining them. As this fanzine article I wrote at the time shows, I was quite excited:

Lee Sullivan's preview for
Storm Warning in
Doctor Who Magazine

"During the 1990s, Doctor Who was, essentially, an ongoing series of books. Five TV specials – variously ersatz, variously not quite right – and as many new audio new adventures are nothing to just short of 200 full length, original novels (mostly) doing new and exciting things with the character and range. For Century 21, it looks like the Doctor is more an audio thang. The BBC’s Radio Collection is beefing up the old stuff they can’t put out on video, Radio 4 is promising a heavyweight, star-studded new series [Death Comes To Time] and Big Finish do enough 25 minute instalments of Doctor Who for every week of the year, as well as new Benny and Dalek spin-offs.

And audio Who will dictate to other-media Who. Big Finish’s Season 27 will knock on all the different Doctor-eight’s we’ve come to know; the BBC Books one, the Doctor Who Magazine model, the Mills-and-Boon-rogue who gets his oats in fan fiction. Finally he’s back... and about for more than 65 minutes, of which (as that Lance Parkin pointed out in the fanzine Matrix some years ago) most is the Doctor doing an uncharacteristic, post-regeneration thing.

None of the Doctors can be summed up by their first story, and only Hartnell ever is. And McGann, of course. But then there’s a reason for that. Five bloody years after the TV movie, we’re getting to the point Lance predicted – where the Doctor being written is a construct of McGann’s performance, his strengths and tendencies; rather than of generic Doctor traits and bits of Marwood in Withnail & I.Weirdly, in the last 18 months they’ve cribbed from The Curse of Fatal Death. Having ‘I’ll explain later...’ in the eighth Doctor books (and on several occasions, like it’s McGann’s catchphrase now) is like Jonny Morris fleshing out [fourth Doctor book] Festival of Death with the Doctor wearing celery.

My original artwork for this article.

It’ll take some time – the first books and comic strips in progress from January 2001 will just maybe get odd extra lines, flourishes added so they’re more McGann; tweaks that shoe the star of these crazy space adventures in his direction. It’s the epics we’ll read in the last days of ’01, moving on up to ’02 where the very structures and sorts of stories being told are structured around this essentially new Doctor’s own quirks and peculiarities.

People have been talking a bit about [eighth Doctor novel] The Burning ushering in a new age for the old Doc’. But compare that to the way that Season 26 (and the books that followed it) took Sylvester’s own performance, played to his strengths and thus shaped a Doctor of far more exciting range and scale than Time and the Rani ever dared suggest possible."

I'm not sure my predictions were quite right, but when McGann returned on screen last week, it was his audio companions he namechecked, not those of the books and comics.

Next episode: 2002