Mr Bitter TV Pick of the Night: Doctor Who
Tonight the finale episode of the new Doctor Who series airs on CBC (8pm). As a life long fan I hereby present my unbiased, professional opinion on the new series. But before I do that let me first make it clear I’m not a huge “sci-fi” guy. Star Trek bores me stupid. The last three Star Wars films pretty much crapped all over my childhood memories – or perhaps it’s those memories that keep me from accurately judging the present films and the original three. Maybe none of them were really that good? I am not well versed in Asimov, Dick, that guy who writes the Ender’s series, and whoever else I’m forgetting. I do like Iain Banks sci-fi novels but was only introduced to them through his fiction novels. But I like Dr Who. Well ... I’m a bit obsessed. Anyway …
I was introduced to Dr Who, like many people, on the lap of my father. TVO, the local public broadcaster, used to run Dr Who alongside Magic Shadows, a showcase for black and white serials like Buck Rogers. In many ways it was a perfect fit with Dr Who. Also Dr. Who wasn’t broadcast in North America as a science fiction series. It was a British series and was shown on PBS with Fawlty Towers and other brit-coms. (Red Dwarf debuted in much the same way. ) Dr. Who’s first fans on this side of the Atlantic weren’t sci-fi fans but fans of British television. Like many of those fans I watched the show sitting, or sleeping on my fathers knee as he watched it. It was a family show in the best sense. It wasn’t sacchrine or preachey. There was no message. It was meant to entertain adults and scare children. It was fun.
The creator of the new series Russell T Davies, is a long time fan of the show and the most important creative decision he made was to begin the first episode not with the Doctor but the his new companion, Rose. The fatal mistake made in the 1999 Fox TV movie starring Paul McGann was to open with the Doctor sitting in the TARDIS sipping tea. If you had never before seen Dr Who you would have scratched your head and turned the channel, perhaps to the finale of Roseanne which Dr Who was running against that evening. In the debut episode of the original series in 1963 the audience is first introduced to Iain and Barbara, two schoolteachers discussing a student they both find odd and intriguing. Their curiosity gets the better of them they follow the student, a young woman named Susan, home to discover that she lives in a junk yard. In the yard they discover an old man, who tries to dismiss them and after a altercation, they all tumble into a Police Box to discover, along with the audience, it’s much bigger on the inside than the out. And that it travels through time. That the old man is called the Doctor and he has no plans of letting them go. Their lives will never be the same. The importance here is that the discoveries are made together by the audience and the characters, through the human companions, not the alien Doctor. Their wonder is our wonder. In the new series we are re-introduced to the Doctor through Rose and again the discoveries are a shared experience, not a privileged, insiders view like in the film. This approached allowed the show to attract an entirely new audience. Like my seven-year-old niece, who, like me, watched on her father’s knee … or least from the same couch.
But unlike the old series, the new series had a linked narrative. During Tom Baker’s run were two occasions where the stories were loosely linked: Ark in Space through Revenge of the Cybermen all involved the same space station as a plot device. And season 18 involved a season-long hunt for the 6 missing pieces of the Key to Time. But beyond that most of the stories were self contained and conceivably days or years could pass between stories and we’d never know it. That type of story telling is less prevalent today, what with many series now having season long threads running through them. And although you could conceivable miss and episode of Dr Who and not feel lost, that narrative thread adds to the draw of the series. This first season we have “Bad Wolf” refernces throughout. And with tonight’s final episode we will finally find out who is the “Bad Wolf”. I’ve been spending for more time than any 33 year-old should pondering this question. Is it the Master? The Doctor’s arch nemesis and fellow timelord? Is it the Doctor himself? Are the timelord’s really all dead but the Doctor? If the Daleks survived then maybe the “time war” is about as final as Bush and his cronies seem to think the Iraq insurgency is?
If there is one complaint I have about the series it’s this. It has yet to create a new enemy as memorably as the old series. There has been no new equivalent to the Daleks or Cybermen yet. (The Cybermen are set to return in season two) Although I appauld the series ability to make the Daleks scary again. The Doctor’s reaction in “Dalek”to discovering one of them has survived; fear and panic, sent shivers through the audience. The Daleks were no longer a joke. You used to be able to just run up a flight of stairs to escape them.
What the series needs is new threat to seize the imagination like the Daleks did in their first appearance in the series. Much to the annoyance of then creator ( the Canadian) Sidney Newman who has specifically said there are to be no “bug-eyes” monsters. After tonights finale I can obesses this till season two? Or the perhaps the Chirstmas Special will give birth to a new, series defining villain?
Soccer season does start up again in august.
Like everything with Doctor Who, time will tell.
I was introduced to Dr Who, like many people, on the lap of my father. TVO, the local public broadcaster, used to run Dr Who alongside Magic Shadows, a showcase for black and white serials like Buck Rogers. In many ways it was a perfect fit with Dr Who. Also Dr. Who wasn’t broadcast in North America as a science fiction series. It was a British series and was shown on PBS with Fawlty Towers and other brit-coms. (Red Dwarf debuted in much the same way. ) Dr. Who’s first fans on this side of the Atlantic weren’t sci-fi fans but fans of British television. Like many of those fans I watched the show sitting, or sleeping on my fathers knee as he watched it. It was a family show in the best sense. It wasn’t sacchrine or preachey. There was no message. It was meant to entertain adults and scare children. It was fun.
The creator of the new series Russell T Davies, is a long time fan of the show and the most important creative decision he made was to begin the first episode not with the Doctor but the his new companion, Rose. The fatal mistake made in the 1999 Fox TV movie starring Paul McGann was to open with the Doctor sitting in the TARDIS sipping tea. If you had never before seen Dr Who you would have scratched your head and turned the channel, perhaps to the finale of Roseanne which Dr Who was running against that evening. In the debut episode of the original series in 1963 the audience is first introduced to Iain and Barbara, two schoolteachers discussing a student they both find odd and intriguing. Their curiosity gets the better of them they follow the student, a young woman named Susan, home to discover that she lives in a junk yard. In the yard they discover an old man, who tries to dismiss them and after a altercation, they all tumble into a Police Box to discover, along with the audience, it’s much bigger on the inside than the out. And that it travels through time. That the old man is called the Doctor and he has no plans of letting them go. Their lives will never be the same. The importance here is that the discoveries are made together by the audience and the characters, through the human companions, not the alien Doctor. Their wonder is our wonder. In the new series we are re-introduced to the Doctor through Rose and again the discoveries are a shared experience, not a privileged, insiders view like in the film. This approached allowed the show to attract an entirely new audience. Like my seven-year-old niece, who, like me, watched on her father’s knee … or least from the same couch.
But unlike the old series, the new series had a linked narrative. During Tom Baker’s run were two occasions where the stories were loosely linked: Ark in Space through Revenge of the Cybermen all involved the same space station as a plot device. And season 18 involved a season-long hunt for the 6 missing pieces of the Key to Time. But beyond that most of the stories were self contained and conceivably days or years could pass between stories and we’d never know it. That type of story telling is less prevalent today, what with many series now having season long threads running through them. And although you could conceivable miss and episode of Dr Who and not feel lost, that narrative thread adds to the draw of the series. This first season we have “Bad Wolf” refernces throughout. And with tonight’s final episode we will finally find out who is the “Bad Wolf”. I’ve been spending for more time than any 33 year-old should pondering this question. Is it the Master? The Doctor’s arch nemesis and fellow timelord? Is it the Doctor himself? Are the timelord’s really all dead but the Doctor? If the Daleks survived then maybe the “time war” is about as final as Bush and his cronies seem to think the Iraq insurgency is?
If there is one complaint I have about the series it’s this. It has yet to create a new enemy as memorably as the old series. There has been no new equivalent to the Daleks or Cybermen yet. (The Cybermen are set to return in season two) Although I appauld the series ability to make the Daleks scary again. The Doctor’s reaction in “Dalek”to discovering one of them has survived; fear and panic, sent shivers through the audience. The Daleks were no longer a joke. You used to be able to just run up a flight of stairs to escape them.
What the series needs is new threat to seize the imagination like the Daleks did in their first appearance in the series. Much to the annoyance of then creator ( the Canadian) Sidney Newman who has specifically said there are to be no “bug-eyes” monsters. After tonights finale I can obesses this till season two? Or the perhaps the Chirstmas Special will give birth to a new, series defining villain?
Soccer season does start up again in august.
Like everything with Doctor Who, time will tell.
posted by Soft Headed Liberal at 7:15 PM
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