Written by Russell T Davies
I watched a repeat of an old Farscape episode this evening, not the best episode by a long way but still filled with cool little ideas, wonderful dialogue and actual charisma from the stars which is mostly generated by the way they act off one another.
Chemistry.
In short everything that the comeback season of Doctor Who was missing.
Not that it didn't have its high points. Look, I made a nifty little graph:
Now don't get too bogged down in my preference of the other doctors - that's not the point. McGann actually wasn't a bad choice he was just lumbered with a terrible series of ideas so overall his Doctorate was slumming at the bottom.
Until Russell T Davies came along.
Now the thing that annoys me most about this little run of twelve episodes is not that it was bad (Casualty is bad) I can ignore just bad. No, the annoying thing about the new Doctor Who is that on occasion it could be good. And not just good. Look at those spikes (and by all means feel free to disagree with me - you'll be wrong of course, but feel free anyway). The two parter of episodes nine ('The Empty Child') and ten ('The Doctor Dances') were the best thing to come out of the BBC for years. Not quite classic Who because they tapped more into the likes of Sapphire and Steel, but they were bloody well written and (the introduction of Captain Wank aside) would have been the best of the season.
If not for episode six.
'Dalek' is not only the best piece of Doctor Who I've ever seen it's one of the best pieces of genre television writing I've seen in years. I know it's caused some debate among the anorak Who fans (of which I'm not - it was all too easy to stop watching after Colin Baker left and fuck the rest of you for allowing the BBC to carry on milking the poor dead thing long after its rotten teat was breaking off in your greedy fanboy maws), but the reason it's better than the 'Are you my mummy?' episodes is that it actually takes some of the series conventions and puts them on their head. Who would even have the audacity to try and pull off sympathy for a Dalek? And the answer to that question is a) Robert Shearman and b) Not Russell T Davies.
Go back and look at the graph. Those low points all have the initials RTD next to them*. In a perfect world, sometime around 8pm this evening Robert Shearman and Steven Moffat would have carried out a very bloody coup within BBC Wales and thrown Mr Davies out of a very high window over a very hard courtyard (or got Patrick McGoohan to do it for them if they had class).
RTD is not the saviour of Doctor Who. Quite the opposite.
His opening episode, 'Rose', ran along on mostly goodwill and what became his trademark writing signature - a few incredible lines of dialogue mixed in with the most turgid 'action' and plotting. The best example of this being 'Boom Town', by far the lowest point of the season. RTD seems to have wanted to recreate the coffee shop conversation from Heat and that's a great idea. The Doc as Al Pacino and any number of strong contenders for the DeNiro role - I'd have gone with The Master of course - but in a sign that he believes his own publicity this fuck brings back perhaps the worst creation in the history of the shows almost 42 year run - yep the farting fat woman.
The one good line about the alien speaking from the mouth of a dead woman is immediately lost.
In 'Rose' (and I was one of the first to praise the comeback) the line where he takes the girl's hand and explains his role is still breathtaking. That scene alone forgives the soap opera backdrop and besides, we're simply happy to have the thing back so we get on with the job of looking forward to what comes next. This was only the first episode after all.
Things could only get better.
But they immediately didn't.
Now it's all over we can see this insipid 'Bad Wolf' malarkey not as a clever gimmick to hang the adventures on, but one bad writers strangle hold on everything that follows. Something for the fans to get rabid about (a little like the leaked first episode) and who cares if there's no pay off - the fans won't mind/care/notice. And on the whole they won't. Just happy to have their little blue box and killer theme tune back.
The weird thing is that most fans of this that I know who still defend it are fans of real sci fi. Stuff like the new Battlestar: Galactica (now that's how you bring a dead show back to life) or Farscape or Firefly. Some of them even share my love of Ultraviolet - a show that popped up briefly to prove genre TV can be done properly again on this tiny little island. Does the BBC logo somehow fuse part of the viewers' brain when it appears on the screen?
Take Firefly - what are we dealing with there? A cast of nine to contend with, a whole new universe and history to create and they still pull off in every 42 minutes (upping their game each episode to boot) what this lumbering crap couldn't do in 12 episodes. Doctor Who came pre-packaged and RTD couldn't even warm it up properly.
I dare you to watch the last episode of Firefly back to back with what screened tonight, look me in the eye and just TRY and use the same adjectives to describe them. Come on over and I'll load them up for you, make you a coffee and then we'll laugh at how misguided you've been. It'll be ok to have a little cry. George Lucas pulled the same shit on you too.
I did have an episode by episode breakdown ready, but after tonight what's the point? It'll go on and I wish I could say it'll improve, but fuck it. I really don't care. I'd rather have that gnome faced fuck back battling giant sweets and Nicolas Parsons than waste any more time on this drivel. If other writers make it soar again then I wish them the best of luck. It should take more than a couple of years of bad writing to kill the legacy, but I'm done with it.
And for the record saving the girl the writers won't allow you to fuck with a kiss was lame when they tried it in the X Files movie.
*The Unquiet Dead was actually written by Mark Gatiss, suffers from all the same problems as his novel and is simply a bad episode. That said I'd rather have him have another go than allow RTD back at the controls of the TARDIS.
NOTE: My finale was better. Fuck you :)
Mike is writing to the sound a thousand gnashing anoraks
Now don't get too bogged down in my preference of the other doctors - that's not the point. McGann actually wasn't a bad choice he was just lumbered with a terrible series of ideas so overall his Doctorate was slumming at the bottom.
Until Russell T Davies came along.
Now the thing that annoys me most about this little run of twelve episodes is not that it was bad (Casualty is bad) I can ignore just bad. No, the annoying thing about the new Doctor Who is that on occasion it could be good. And not just good. Look at those spikes (and by all means feel free to disagree with me - you'll be wrong of course, but feel free anyway). The two parter of episodes nine ('The Empty Child') and ten ('The Doctor Dances') were the best thing to come out of the BBC for years. Not quite classic Who because they tapped more into the likes of Sapphire and Steel, but they were bloody well written and (the introduction of Captain Wank aside) would have been the best of the season.
If not for episode six.
'Dalek' is not only the best piece of Doctor Who I've ever seen it's one of the best pieces of genre television writing I've seen in years. I know it's caused some debate among the anorak Who fans (of which I'm not - it was all too easy to stop watching after Colin Baker left and fuck the rest of you for allowing the BBC to carry on milking the poor dead thing long after its rotten teat was breaking off in your greedy fanboy maws), but the reason it's better than the 'Are you my mummy?' episodes is that it actually takes some of the series conventions and puts them on their head. Who would even have the audacity to try and pull off sympathy for a Dalek? And the answer to that question is a) Robert Shearman and b) Not Russell T Davies.
Go back and look at the graph. Those low points all have the initials RTD next to them*. In a perfect world, sometime around 8pm this evening Robert Shearman and Steven Moffat would have carried out a very bloody coup within BBC Wales and thrown Mr Davies out of a very high window over a very hard courtyard (or got Patrick McGoohan to do it for them if they had class).
RTD is not the saviour of Doctor Who. Quite the opposite.
His opening episode, 'Rose', ran along on mostly goodwill and what became his trademark writing signature - a few incredible lines of dialogue mixed in with the most turgid 'action' and plotting. The best example of this being 'Boom Town', by far the lowest point of the season. RTD seems to have wanted to recreate the coffee shop conversation from Heat and that's a great idea. The Doc as Al Pacino and any number of strong contenders for the DeNiro role - I'd have gone with The Master of course - but in a sign that he believes his own publicity this fuck brings back perhaps the worst creation in the history of the shows almost 42 year run - yep the farting fat woman.
The one good line about the alien speaking from the mouth of a dead woman is immediately lost.
In 'Rose' (and I was one of the first to praise the comeback) the line where he takes the girl's hand and explains his role is still breathtaking. That scene alone forgives the soap opera backdrop and besides, we're simply happy to have the thing back so we get on with the job of looking forward to what comes next. This was only the first episode after all.
Things could only get better.
But they immediately didn't.
Now it's all over we can see this insipid 'Bad Wolf' malarkey not as a clever gimmick to hang the adventures on, but one bad writers strangle hold on everything that follows. Something for the fans to get rabid about (a little like the leaked first episode) and who cares if there's no pay off - the fans won't mind/care/notice. And on the whole they won't. Just happy to have their little blue box and killer theme tune back.
The weird thing is that most fans of this that I know who still defend it are fans of real sci fi. Stuff like the new Battlestar: Galactica (now that's how you bring a dead show back to life) or Farscape or Firefly. Some of them even share my love of Ultraviolet - a show that popped up briefly to prove genre TV can be done properly again on this tiny little island. Does the BBC logo somehow fuse part of the viewers' brain when it appears on the screen?
Take Firefly - what are we dealing with there? A cast of nine to contend with, a whole new universe and history to create and they still pull off in every 42 minutes (upping their game each episode to boot) what this lumbering crap couldn't do in 12 episodes. Doctor Who came pre-packaged and RTD couldn't even warm it up properly.
I dare you to watch the last episode of Firefly back to back with what screened tonight, look me in the eye and just TRY and use the same adjectives to describe them. Come on over and I'll load them up for you, make you a coffee and then we'll laugh at how misguided you've been. It'll be ok to have a little cry. George Lucas pulled the same shit on you too.
I did have an episode by episode breakdown ready, but after tonight what's the point? It'll go on and I wish I could say it'll improve, but fuck it. I really don't care. I'd rather have that gnome faced fuck back battling giant sweets and Nicolas Parsons than waste any more time on this drivel. If other writers make it soar again then I wish them the best of luck. It should take more than a couple of years of bad writing to kill the legacy, but I'm done with it.
And for the record saving the girl the writers won't allow you to fuck with a kiss was lame when they tried it in the X Files movie.
*The Unquiet Dead was actually written by Mark Gatiss, suffers from all the same problems as his novel and is simply a bad episode. That said I'd rather have him have another go than allow RTD back at the controls of the TARDIS.
NOTE: My finale was better. Fuck you :)
Mike is writing to the sound a thousand gnashing anoraks
posted by Sizemore at 6/18/2005 09:56:00 pm
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