TV: Doctor Who Series 10 Finale

This blog contains spoilers...

The ending of the latest series of Doctor Who ends with the 12th Doctor stubbornly refusing to regenerate, something completely in tune with Capaldi's portrayal; and then meeting the first Doctor, possibly the only previous Doctor who can match the 12th Doctor for stubbornness.

Well I did say there were spoilers.

Anyway, that will all be dealt with at Christmas no doubt, Steven Moffat’s last flirtation with timey-wimeyness before he goes. Well his love of timey-wimeyness is less ‘flirtatious’ and more ‘rampant’ but you know what I mean.

This last series has seen the introduction of Bill, who has been one of the best companions in a long time.  Clara was originally created more as a development than a personality - the ‘impossible girl’ - and her departure last year, where she basically became a Doctor-like figure in her own right was a continuation of this, despite an attempt to giver her more character development in Season 8. That’s not to say she was a bad companion, but it’s refreshing to have a character that was more emotionally realistic and bult from the ground up.  In fact Bill’s character is probably my favourite companion from Steven Moffat’s tenure. Moffat sometimes can’t seem to help himself from going all timey-wimey on his characters, which isn’t always a bad thing in this kind of show - might not work as well in Corrie - but it’s nice that Bill became a powerful and realistic dramatic force in the programme to contrast with the weirdness around her.  Until she became a Cyberman and the Doctor couldn’t save her of course (you know by now there’s spoilers - if you’re annoyed about this spoiler you only have yourself to blame).

The build up of the evolution of the Cybermen finally gives them a origin genesis story in New Who - their introduction way back in Season 2 was basically the same as Genesis of the Daleks, but with Trigger from Only Fools and Horses instead of Davros.  Seeing the slow evolution of the Cybermen as something that a civilization willingly does in order to survive is believab

le (as far as Doctor Who goes) and creepy than the idea they started out as kidnapped homeless people by bad men and turned into robots.  The city (which has a strong 1920s ‘Metropolis’ feel), dominated by a hospital with its Inpatient, Conversion Theatre and Outpatient wards feels suitably decrepit and desperate. The patients, covered head to toe in bandages before being fully converted, are eerily sympathetic, and give a greater understanding of the point of the Cybermen - they started out as willing converts, and then went around the universe spreading the good news.  They’re technological evangelists.  According to the Doctor, all the vague and conflicting stories about where the Cybermen come from can be explained by the fact that this is where evolution takes everyone eventually, when mother nature can’t keep up with the demand for survival, humans give her a hand with their own augmentations.  These early Cybermen, based on the original Cybermen from the 60s, are suitably slap-dash and the best that could be done with limited resources (which in real life is exactly why the Cybermen costumes looked like they did in ‘The Tenth Planet’ making this episode partly a retcon 60s costume design).  It doesn’t take them long before they develop ‘war units’, who are the traditional armour plated Cybermen we are used to.

Oh yes, and that seemingly friendly man who looks after Bill for years in order to trick her into undergoing conversion?  Yes, that’s John Simm in disguise for the majority of the first half of the story, doing an excellent job of the Master being in disguise for an actual reason.  In the first multi-Master story the series has done, he is there in order to remind us how much Missy has become better at not being a completely villainous bitch and is starting to go over to the Doctor's side.  Simm’s Master is the traditional Master, the trickster who just likes being evil for evil’s sake.  He’s largely there as a counterpoint to Missy but steals a great many of his scenes.  When both versions of the Master murder each other (timey-wimey breakdown alert) there’s a brilliant scene of them giggling and laughing their heads off like naughty schoolchildren.

This series got the balance of dark and light just right.  The Doctor is still aloof but not as unkind or unsympathetic as he was in Season 8.  Most importantly, the plots have been entirely relatable and could be a great place to introduce someone to the series (perhaps - as long as someone could explain the Master to them).  If you’re ever trying to watch the show with a non-fan, Moffat is at his most frustrating when he over-eggs the clever plotting and it’s much more reined in here.  I’m looking forward to seeing how Capaldi’s Doctor finally ends, and of course finding out who his replacement is going to be...

TV: Doctor Who - Sweary Man In Space

Since 2006 The Doctor has been an unambiguous hero, with even Christopher Eccleston’s prickly Doctor Nine being the guy you can trust to be your friend.  After the departure of Matt Smith as the lead Peter Capaldi is now The Doctor and the show has taken a complete departure as well.  

This is of course the beauty of a show like Doctor Who – it has its own built in reboot button meaning that every few years it can regenerate and become something completely different.  It can and does rebel against itself, meaning that Matt Smith’s cuddly Doctor Eleven has been replaced with Peter Capaldi’s spiky and truly alien Doctor Twelve.  The Doctor is now a very ambiguous hero, and a much more interesting one.

The infamous Capaldi eyebrows...

Peter Capaldi is best known (in Britain at least) as being the sweary spin doctor Malcolm Tucker in The Thick Of It.  That role involved a lot of swearing and that probably isn’t going to figure much in his portrayal of The Doctor… It hasn’t yet, anyway.  He’s the first actor to play the Doctor in the new series to be so closely identified with another cult role.  Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant were established character actors and Matt Smith was virtually unknown.  To a lot of people Peter Capaldi is Malcolm Tucker.  This isn’t necessarily a problem, especially as Doctor Twelve shares a lot of Tucker’s character traits – it means there’s a shorthand way in to getting a hold on the character.  There were jokes aplenty when Capaldi’s casting was announced about how the new series of Doctor Who would be ‘Sweary Man in Space’, but I don’t think anyone expected that to actually happen to the extent it has.  In fact The Doctor is an even more intimidating figure than Malcolm Tucker ever was and that’s saying something.  He’s perhaps not as aggressive but he’s a highly volatile personality handling life or death situations and that’s worse, especially when you’re used to The Doctor being a friendly and open person.

In the second episode of this latest series, ‘Into The Dalek’, a soldier seems to be about to die and The Doctor throws something to him, smiles a crocodile grin and says “trust me”.  The soldier then dies quite gruesomely, and it turns out The Doctor was just using him to measure the radiation levels (or something).  Everyone is shocked but The Doctor brushes it aside irritably, saying “He was dead already, I’m saving our lives”, and moves on.  This is maybe something other Doctors would have done, in a tight corner; but no other Doctor would have behaved so callously.  David Tennant’s Doctor for instance would have said his trademark line in this sort of situation, “I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry”, and looked… well, sorry.  Peter Capaldi’s smiles like a predator in order to manipulate the situation then gets on with the job.  This moral ambiguity has made for more complex themes so far.  For all of Christopher Eccleston’s angst in playing Doctor Nine, he was still playing a broadly heroic character that you could relate to.  This new Doctor makes you ask the question – does saving the day automatically make you a hero?  In the last episode, ‘Kill The Moon’, he actually walks off and leaves the humans to it – he says it’s their home at stake and he has faith in Clara to make the right decision.  Then buggers off, mid-adventure.  This is not typical adventure hero behaviour – but then when was The Doctor ever meant to be a typical adventure hero?

"Be my pal, tell me - am I a good man?"

Speaking of Clara – she’s great nowadays.  I never really took to her as a character when she started, mainly because she seemed all wrapped up in being a gimmicky ‘Impossible Girl’ plotline, but also because she didn’t seem to have as much chemistry with Matt Smith as he had had with Amy and Rory.  She really clicks with this new Doctor though, and has a real dramatic purpose as an audience identification figure.  There’s not actually been that much need for an audience identification figure for ages because The Doctor has been played as an essentially likeable eccentric.  Now he’s being played as a character just the right side of unlikeable she’s absolutely necessary to the show – The Twelfth Doctor, as with Malcolm Tucker, can only work well as part of an ensemble.  It basically feels like Clara’s regenerated as well, and definitely for the better.

The last few years have shown us The Doctor in a touchy-feely light – basically as a bit of a weird human.  Well The Doctor hasn’t been this alien since well before we actually knew he was an alien, back when William Hartnell was the guvnor.  The Doctor isn’t your fun uncle or eccentric older brother anymore – he’s your grumpy Scottish grandfather, and you were sorely trying his patience even before he walked into the room.  He’s still your friend, just, but he’s the kind of friend you worry about introducing to other people.

It’s quite shocking, and it’s refreshing after the charming characters we’ve got used to having as the lead.  The Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Doctors all have scenes where a great deal is made out of The Doctor being what monsters have nightmares about, or about being the ‘Oncoming Storm’ or the ‘Last Of The Time Lords’.  Most of the time however, they’re fun to be around.  The reverse is true with this one – he is witty, but he’s not a comedian and he’s more serious and alien than not.  Compared to the Classic Doctors, Doctor Twelve is like a cross between One and Six.  Colin Baker’s Doctor was meant to have a character arc where he started out brash and unlikeable and gradually became more and more at peace with himself.  It didn’t really work out that way because the cack handed way it was approached nearly killed the programme.  But it’s a good idea for a character arc and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s exactly what they’re trying to do with the character in his Twelfth incarnation, but this time doing it right.

And does it work?  Personally I love Peter Capaldi as an actor, and at the moment I’m enjoying seeing him be The Doctor a lot.  The character has obviously been designed to rub against the previous characters of the new series – sometimes this is overdone   when scenes make him just a bit too unlikeable, seemingly just to remind you that Peter Capaldi is not Matt Smith.  It works because it does what every new Doctor should do which is to shake the viewer out of their comfort zone and put them in an entirely different type of show.  His debut episode dropped Doctor Twelve into what would have been a fairly standard Doctor Eleven story and showed how different the series would be – Matt Smith’s Doctor wouldn’t have poured his enemy and himself a whiskey before throwing him to his death.  It’s a whole new game and one that's turning our to be a different kind of fun.