Three episodes in and I’m magnificently underwhelmed.
It’s mainly bish-bosh action and rushing on. The dialogue isn’t coming over well, at least to me. Is it the actors’ diction, or too much background noise, or am I going deaf?
And Karen Gillan ought to have refused to utter the line, “Well, I’m still here, aren’t I?”
As a Scot she should have insisted on, “Well, I’m still here, amn’t I?”
Okay. Charges of gingerism dropped for the moment since no new mention of it was made. Plus the latest companion (like Catherine Tate before her) is a redhead.
Except… The child she was when she first met the doctor was not redheaded. Now how is that exactly? I know this is loosely Science Fiction but usually hair colour diminishes on ageing.
As a setter-upper the episode was passable but no more. A bit harum-scarum. And what is it with Who and creatures with fangs?
I’m not yet convinced by Matt Smith in the role. Full marks for the new assistant’s Scottishness, though.
The acting of the wee lass playing the young Amelia was excellent. Don’t suppose the doctor could have such a callow companion, though. Not nowadays anyway. (The original Doctor had his granddaughter, Susan, An Unearthly Child, with him, of course. She was supposedly of school age but was played by someone much older than that.)
The BBC has been showing trailers for the series – some scenes appeared before the end credits of Episode 1. I was tickled by the khaki Dalek (complete with canvas webbing belt) emerging from the sandbag enclosure.
Pity it can’t carry a swagger stick. That would have been even funnier.
It seems I may have done Russell T something of a disservice. According to the comments in a blog which I frequent, the dialogue for the new Doctor’s scene was actually scripted by Steven Moffat, the new overall supremo for the series.
Also the line, “And still not ginger,” seems to be a reference to one of David Tennant’s first utterances in the role. I had forgotten he was given that to say but now I’ve been reminded I do vaguely recollect it. As I recall now, Tennant said it in a regretful tone, though, which I did not think Matt Smith did.
For me, the new doctor has got off on the wrong foot.
I’ve just watched the second of the Doctor Who specials which were on over the holiday season.
The story was pretty much awful. (Thank you, Onebrow, for this pithy summing up.)
The coda epitomised everything that was wrong with Russell T Davies’s oversight of the series. It was so far up itself it was excruciating. All of the Doctor’s companions since the programme’s resurrection (and their families!) made an appearance merely in order that Tennant’s Doctor could say farewell. Ladle on the treacle why don’t you?
And the new Doctor didn’t get himself off on the right foot, either. Examining himself for changes in appearance he dragged a lock of hair down past his eyes and said in a pleased tone, “And still not ginger.”
And still not ginger? And still not ginger?
Would you think it acceptable, Russell, if your character had said, “And still not black?” or “And still not gay?”
To pose this question is to underline the gratuitousness – not to mention offensiveness – of the comment.
The Doctor surely ought to be above such things, Russell, even if you’re not.
I managed to watch most of Hamlet today – the need to take in food interrupted it a bit. (Wouldn’t 7-10 or 8-11 pm have been better time slots?) Quite well done, I thought.
Not like the previous day’s Doctor Who, which was pretty much awful. I’ve always disliked the Russell T Davies episodes. So much recursive stuff about the Doctor’s companions’ families.
My younger son for some reason took a liking to Doctor Who even though it was in its long hiatus when he was growing up. As a result he has much more of an encyclopædic knowledge of the Who canon than me. He was of much the same opinion about this Christmas special as I was.
I’m more hopeful for the upcoming Steven Moffat driven series but I’m not sure about the new Doctor. Time will tell.
I caught Bill Baileyâs Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra on BBC 2 on Saturday night (9/5/09.) His take was, of course, comedic, but included some semi-serious stuff about the use of bassoons, oboes, muted trombones and the like.
Even more light-heartedly we had a rendering of both the Moonlight Sonata and the William Tell Overture incorporating Cockney Music (Oi!) More examples from Bailey of Cockney Music influencing the classical arena can be found in the following clip.
The highlight of Saturday nightâs show for me, though, was the Doctor Who theme tune reimagined as a Belgian Jazz song. Like the Cockney Music section this seems to be a reworking of part of Baileyâs stage show as in this clip from You Tube but he added some more jokes in cod French in the Orchestra programme. (Les Daleks ne pouvait pas monter les escaliers was one that tickled me.)
He did say, “Je suis Docteur Qui,” at one point, though. True aficionados (aficionadi?) know the correct phrase would be, “Je suis le Docteur.”
If youâre interested in music in a general sense with, like me, only a smattering of knowledge about it, search the programme out. I suppose it’ll be on the iPlayer at the moment.
Delighted to see that the Doctor Who episode “Blink” written by Steven Moffat, directed by Hettie Macdonald, won the Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form category at this year’s Hugo Awards.
I can’t comment about the other awards as I mostly have not read the stories/journals concerned. (You should see my books-to-be-read pile!)
“Blink” was to my mind the outstanding episode from the 2007 season and well deserves the accolade. Like all of Steven Moffat’s episodes it was head and shoulders above those written by Russell T Davis. Hopefully the fact that Mr Moffat is assuming the oversight of Doctor Who bodes well for future series.
“Blink” was also notable for only having about three minutes worth of David Tennant in it. Good as he is as the Doctor, “Blink” nevertheless showed that a proper, intelligent Science Fiction story could be done on TV without (much) of the Doctor as a prop.
Pity this could not carry over into “Torchwood” of which I watched the first episode and promptly gave up. I never caught the Sarah Jane spin-off stories, which, given the last two episodes of the 2008 Doctor Who season may have been a blessing.
