Time Coded

Coming soon... in audio.

Nicholas Courtney 1929 - 2011.

When I was a child, I hated football. I still do to this day. However, I did have something that I followed with same level of passion as the most fervent football fan. In the way they knew League positions, goals scored and transfer costs I knew the same level of detail about something else… a television show called, “Doctor Who”. Their liking made them lads, mine made me a geek. Hey ho.

What it also did was something far more important. It gave both my father and I a great arena for football like rivalry. He was always Team Pertwee. For my part, I knew that team was due for relegation and that he was wrong. The true Team, the Dream Team, was Team Troughton! Grab those recorders and toot them loud! Troughton! Troughton!

Our rivalry was fierce. Mock fierce. And it lasted. However, there was one who could unite us. As I teasing asked, “So, how many stories did YOUR Doctor fall unconscious in again?” and he playfully rebounded with a glare (my dad has a Pertwee like nose – believe me, that glare was all he had to do)… it would only take the mention of one man to make us both smile, put away our rivalry and nod in unison.

That man?

The Brigadier… Or, as it became increasingly important to call him, Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge Stewart!

In this one man we saw the truth. The Doctor was a splendid chap, all of him. And, more importantly, so was the Brigadier – the ally above all allies. What was even more important than that though was the fact that the actor who played him was equally wonderful and all embracing - of the Doctors, the show and of the fans.

When Team Pertwee played Team Troughton, neither champion even dreamed that they would one day meet their unifying light… but both did. A number of times. I met Nicholas Courtney as a nervous fan, an excited fan and once as a fan with a hangover (although I’m happy to say that he, too, had a sore head that Sunday morning at the first Regenerations). Every time he was polite, enthusiastic, warm, signed until he had blisters and never once made me feel as though he didn’t want to be there… or that he would rather I moved along as there were other people waiting behind me. When you talked to Nicholas Courtney you felt as though he wanted you there – it was a moment of union. That TV show was now in the real world and that man you admired, that actor you could quote his own lines to, was talking one on one with you. You left his company feeling blessed.

Now his company has left us, I still feel blessed – as I’m sure a great many other fans do, too.

Oh, in other news, Team Pertwee and Team Troughton have been bought. Yeah, it was a huge merger thing.

They now play for Courtney FC.

Re-writing The Doctor - Part One

(image from Dan Dickinson's Blog)

Re-writing The Doctor

Why the RTD era had to end the way it did.

Part One

There has been a great deal of online debate centred around the end of the RTD era, in particular the way it re-used ideas and left the Doctor morose, alone and, basically, miserable.

Looking back over the era in retrospect, it is clear to me that this was actually the only way it could have realistically ended.

When the 9th Doctor arrived on our screens, he was still the Doctor we had always known but he was more... detached, even through the forced levity he sometimes displayed. There's a sadness in his eyes, and heaviness in his description of who is. He even tells Rose to "go home and forget me". Indeed, all the way through the episode Rose he tries to distance himself from her, seemingly not wanting that most iconic of Who-staples, namely "a companion". However, a combination of events, coincidence and Tyler-curiosity instigate the inevitable and by the close of the episode the unit of Doctor and companion is complete.

However, even as the Doctor and Rose headed for The End of the World and the end credits crashed in there was something else… something new in the mix. In the space of 45 minutes we had been introduced to a whole series of characters, not simply Rose. There was her gobby but clearly devoted mother; the wimpy but happy and contented boyfriend; the missing character of her father was also there simply by not being there… the famed (or in-famed) “soap element” (more on that later). And there was also someone else, someone who would prove to be the first of many… someone who has very little screen time but actually came over as a real, three dimensional character. Obviously, I mean Clive. While some may have felt him a Who-fan parody, something already seen, and winced at, in The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, this time it was done with affection and something far more important. Clive was written with HEART.

This is a word I will keep coming back to time and again. Without denigrating the original series in ANY way, when the Doctor and Ace walked off at the end of Survival, no-one bar the hard core fans actually cared… or, more importantly, actually noticed. Over the years it was the show’s absence that would actually make people realise how much they loved and missed it, but that’s a whole different Blog entry.

It had, as much as some fans would like to deny it – myself included – become tired and dry to too many, despite going through a glorious regeneration (sic) at the time it ended, and never really shook off the “Introspective” and “non-inclusive” cloak that it wore in the mid-80s.

RTD had to make the show fresh, real in an unreal world and, just like the Police Box itself, free for the use of the general public.

He did this by taking the show and performing a simple operation. He gave it a heart. He gave it people we actually cared about.

When Clive was shot by an Auton, people posted about him, wanting him back. Even in 2005, this early on, I clearly thought that if this was the level of character identification we were going to be offered in “New Who”, then what would the new regime do both to and with the companion?

When I said that when the show ended no-one but the hard core cared, it is important to remember that RTD was one of those. If you look at Rose, both the episode and the character, it is almost a tonal remake of Survival insomuch as the location and the use of a fully rounded companion.

Am I saying that Rose is Ace, “up graded”? To an extent, yes, I guess I am. More importantly, though, I am saying that we were being presented with one of the triumphs of the end of original Who, a character companion, not simple someone who was a great idea on paper, worked well for one introductory story and them became “generic to be given life by the actor playing them”.

Yes, I know that Rose was the “introductory” story I mentioned working so well for so many before, but the elements that helped to round Rose were actually there on-screen, not simply worded asides – and before anyone says Logopolis, unlike Tegan’s also “on screen” Aunt Vanessa they actually survived the story.

They’d be back, surely? If so, how? Why? Would there actually be consequences involved with someone going off into time and space and leaving people behind?

My gut feeling for the character of Rose was good. However, I had no idea how far reaching this one companion was going to be in the lives of two Doctors and how, in the end, it was her that determined the whole course of the Tenth Doctor’s life and motivation.

It is difficult to underestimate this council girl’s importance almost from the word go.

Although clearly a devise to allow a new audience to get to know our hero, over the course of the series he opened up to her, revealing layers of who he was. The reverse of this process would be seen in action when Martha Jones came on board and he’d clammed up again, but let’s not too “timey-wimey” just yet.

He tells her, initially, that the TARDIS is a space ship. Fact one. He tells her he’s an alien. Fact two. However, unlike the info dump that was the first minute of the Paul McGann TVM, that’s it for a bit. He actually leaves the fact the TARDIS is a time machine right until the end of Rose. In The End of the World, he shows her a culture shock inducing “carnival of monsters”, parading his world in front of her. In the same story, we learn that the TARDIS “gets inside my head” allowing Rose to understand these “monsters” (something we didn’t have mentioned until The Masque of Madragora in the original run). Finally in this story, Rose and we are told something else, and something that is new even to us. Not only is the Doctor a Time Lord (I can imagine Ace’s Silver Nemesis reaction to that particular revelation) but he is also… the Last of the Time Lords. He has been left alone by a Time War. Against whom we are not told, yet, but that hardly mattered at that moment. We needed time to digest the first piece of “new” information that we, the hard core, had been delivered.

Millions of fan jaws hit the floor… or their keyboards. The Time Lords? Gone? Now, hear me out here BUT this now made the Doctor a man, an identifiable man for the new generation. He wasn’t simply an alien (such bomb shells don’t impact as much these, or those, days) or a Time Lord …. but a man, and he was alone. He was now someone battle weary, someone struggling with grief, wanting to heal, wanting to let someone in but scared of the consequences.

By accident or design, he’d come to Earth, a planet he loves, had once been exiled to… to be healed.

This is what makes him a “man”. He’d come home to the familiar, to where he felt safe and at home. And it can easily be argued that both the 9th and 10th Doctors are among the most human incarnations of them all. Only the 5th comes close, and even he… well, timey wimey!

Almost fighting the process In Rose’s flat, the Doctor flicks through a magazine, observing, “That’ll never work, he’s gay and she’s an alien…” Well, while the dynamic may not be the same, that line is clearly a metaphor and has resonance.

He’s a Time Lord and she’s a human. Could that ever work… again?

In the closing moments of The End of the World, Rose tells the Doctor, “You’ve got me!” and holds his hand. At that moment the healing process begins.

The audience, for their part – both new and old – want to hold his hand as well. However, with that holding of hands both his rejuvenation and his ultimate demise one life later are sealed.

It seems it’s true what they say. Chips, while they may well fill you up, are ultimately bad for you.

TBC

The Waters of Mars - a thought

Okay, here's my opinion on an aspect of The Waters of Mars:

Back at Easter we were told that Planet of the Dead would be the last hurrah for the Tenth Doctor. It really was. It, like its predecessor, The Next Doctor, ended with humanity publicly celebrating and cheering both the Doctor and his actions, with one character repeating, emphatically, just how much he loved him. The Waters of Mars, on the other hand, ended on a much more private and sombre level. One human is terrified of the Doctor and runs away from him after commenting on the TARDIS’ dimensions (something that up until that point had always been either a source of joy or at the very worst “non-sense”) and another undermines his choices by killing herself. It would seem that humanity adores the Doctor but, in a trend hinted at by Donna in The Runaway Bride, shies away from the self same figure when he acknowledges and embraces exactly was he is and what it means, i.e. that he is not just an alien but a Time Lord, the Last of the Time Lords; someone not just with responsibilities but also power – a terrible, frightening power if used for the wrong reasons.

Let’s not make any mistakes here - the Doctor has always been an arrogant figure. Examples range from recent activity in which he and Rose roamed the universe believing they were Teflon coated to the Third Doctor belittling the Brigadier, government officials and generally anyone in a position of authority on a regular basis. Indeed, the First Doctor was once so sure of himself that was prepared to contemplate murder to escape a situation. However, his actions were always governed and directed by rules, and by the questioning of those around him. Also, let’s be honest, what he strives to do here echoes what a lot of people, both audience and characters, have often asked: Why doesn’t he just save those he knows will die? Surely by taking the remaining survivors of Bowie Base One home, he is preserving that most important of things: life.

What happens in The Waters of Mars is that he throws aside the rules that once made him dictate “You can’t rewrite history. Not one line!” and with no-one there to stop him, to question if he has “the right” to do this the arrogance takes our renegade down a path in which he no longer cares, no longer has to answer to anyone. In so doing he becomes what he has always fought against, a figure that acts without fear of consequence. He becomes someone who could stand alongside Omega, the Master or even his very own alter-ego, the Valeyard. It could be argued that he even trumps them all in that he sets himself up as a vigilante.

The Doctor that upheld the laws of time in Mexico would have been appalled. As would someone else. At the end of The Waters of Mars, the Doctor should have turned around to see Barbara Wright. She would have probably bitch-slapped him across the face before vanishing into the night – and who would have blamed her?

Review of DW S4 Episodes 1-3

Doctor Who 2008: A Noble Series
John Davies

I wrote this for a friend and nothing came of it - long story! Now, what follows may come as a shock to those who know me online (i.e. I actually express an opinion ;)) but here you go... Have fun with it.

Part One: Episodes 1 – 3

Return of the Temp

Would it start airing on April 5th or April 12th? Or could it possibly be March 29th? Would this be Tennant’s final year? Would Catherine Tate triumph, or would her re-casting be the point where the show jumped the shark? So began this year’s online speculation about the fourth series of Doctor Who. And in the months that followed, the debate never let up … hitting a point on June 28th where a number of websites actually fell over due to excessive activity.

All a far cry from a mere five years ago when the show was largely just a memory to the general public, a flame kept alive by its die hard fans and their endeavours. In 2005, with a wave of his psychic paper, the Doctor kicked down the door to the mainstream again, affirming what the truly enlightened have always known: this is quality stuff.

Drama, horror, comedy… Doctor Who has the blessed position of being the only show in the history of television to have the ability to convincingly deliver all of these things within the framework of its story telling. The only constaints are the Doctor, a companion(s), a time machine and a dilemma. The rest is, and always has been, open to the writer’s imagination. One week the Doctor may have to decide whether he has the right to destroy an entire species, the next he could be having a dance with a love struck teenager in a Welsh holiday resort. If one story doesn’t interest you, fine, tune in again for the next one – it’ll be a whole different ride.

So, what did the latest batch of adventures bring?

The Adipose Invasion

Series 4 began (on April 5th, fact fans) with Partners in Crime, a light hearted tale penned by series head writer Russell T. Davies. The Doctor, again played by the pitch perfect David Tennant, is on his own, investigating strange goings on at Adipose Industries, and so is a certain Donna Noble … a face familiar to many from the 2006 Christmas Special The Runaway Bride.

The last time we saw her, she turned down the Doctor’s offer to accompany him on his travels. In this episode, we discover she’s desperate to track him down having changed her mind. To say that the return of Donna was controversial would be an understatement. Not because of her character, but rather because of who plays her. Catherine Tate has developed a reputation for being a Marmite performer – either loved or loathed. In 2008, the Daniel Craig Syndrome reared its ugly head again – with many Marmite haters claiming that this could signal the end for the show. However, I call it the Daniel Craig Syndrome for a reason. Just as many anti-Craig Bond fans consumed ample amounts of humble pie following his stellar performance in Casino Royale, so a great number of Who fans put in their orders, too, following this episode, with the demand simply increasing in the weeks and months to come. I won’t make any bones about it, I adore Catherine Tate as Donna Noble. To have a companion who isn’t dewy eyed about the Doctor and is clearly there because she loves the thrill of the ride has been a joy. Forget the sometimes overdone ‘let’s show Catherine cry to get her appreciated’ scenes which have littered the series, the best moment with Tate, for me, has to be in The Stolen Earth when she spots Rose behind the Doctor. No angst, no jealousy – just the warmth of someone pleased in the knowledge that a friend, a ‘mate’ to use the Doctor’s own word, now has the chance to see a person that they know they adore – someone thought lost for good. It’s just a look. No more. Great actors know the truth is in the small detail, and Tate has demonstrated this time and time again this year. It takes great skill to turn in one of the best mime routines committed to camera and then spin on a sixpence to make you feel the soul of a character – and in doing so manage to keep the core of that character real.

However, that look was in episode 12, shown on June 28th. The day the internet shook. Months down the line. Back to episode one...

In tone often resembling the hit CBBC Doctor Who spin off series The Sarah Jane Adventures, it did what an opening episode has to do. It set the scene. With the focus clearly centred on reuniting Donna with the Doctor, the plot, by necessity was a background affair. A miracle diet pill isn’t all that it seems. In fact it’s a way of generating alien babies from human fat – one with a rather nasty side effect for the humans involved. The Doctor must stop the scheme, and he does. As the Adipose babies flew into the sky and the Sarah Lancashire’s deliciously camp Miss Foster Wile E Coyote-d to Earth, I was reassured and optimistic about the upcoming season. I also wanted an Adipose of my own, but that’s for my psychiatrist to worry about.

The episode didn’t overload any new viewers with too much back history, but in the same breath it gave its loyal fans knowing nods and winks – just look out for the references to classic era story Survival (or possibly New Earth/Gridlock), the inclusion of Bernard Cribbins, last seen in Voyage of the Damned, now named as Donna’s grandfather Wilf and, then, of course there was the scene no-one saw coming. With the Doctor having agreed to allow Donna to go with him, she hid her car keys in a bin and asked a blond girl to look out for her mum. As Donna walked away, the girl turned around, accompanied by a piece of music not heard in the show for two years - the musical theme from Doomsday. Rose Tyler! We knew that Billie Piper was coming back, but no-one expected it to be this early in the run. Trapped in a parallel universe, what on Earth was she doing there? Why does she then disappear? When will we see her again? RTD had pulled off a master stroke – the first of many this year. In this, his swan song season, he would go on to draw on many elements from his tenure as show runner… but never in a way to alienate the more casual audience.

Two final points with Partners in Crime - we had our first mention of the bees disappearing, and a planet vanishing. Ever since Series One intrigued us with Bad Wolf, key words or themes have run through each season. Series Two had Torchwood, Series Three (and other isolated episodes) had Saxon. In Series Four, however, the bees, and the planets, would be just two in a number a recurring themes – the next of which would be introduced in episode two, The Fires of Pompeii.

Volcano Day

In an era where speculation is rife, people want to know what the future of their favourite television shows holds well in advance. Soap magazines with huge plot reveals splashed cross their covers fly off the shelves, people pale through lack of sunlight as they post on websites… The love of spoilers is everywhere, and they even form part of a plot later in this very series… However, are they good, or bad? Well, when they appear in the tantalizing guise of prophesies in Pompeii the Jury was definitely formed of Twelve Intrigued Men.

Once again showing off the TARDIS’ capabilities to a new companion, the Doctor has whisked Donna back into Earth’s history. Believing there are in ancient Rome, the pair tour the streets demonstrating the joy their travels bring to them. There is also a lovely throw away line to a first Doctor adventure in there, and, once again, it was one that would delight fans but not confuse the general audience.

Of course, they are not in Rome. They are in Pompeii - at exactly the wrong time. Vesuvius is about to blow, destroying the town, wiping out an entire civilization. What follows is a triumphant examination of the show’s ethics. With the Doctor quite prepared to let history run its course, Donna, and we as the audience, want to know why. Why does a man who does nothing but interfere in present and future events hold back in preventing deaths in the past? What does he know that we don’t? Is it a web of time thing? Echoing Mr. Copper’s observation in Voyage of the Damned, what gives him the right to decide who lives and who dies? In effect what follows is a demonstration of Donna’s humanity and how, in the end, it manages to seep into the alien, time-sensitive alien.

Thrown into the mix of glorious location filming (in both Italy and, drum roll, Cardiff), Tranformer-like rock monsters, cults, the disappearance of another planet, draw dropping Volcanic eruptions and a water pistol wielding Doctor we have the alluded to prophesies. Now, while even at this stage it was easy for us to state with some level of authority that ‘she is returning’ refers to Rose, just what is on Donna’s back?

Talking of Donna, full credit must go to Tate again in this episode. Two scenes stand out. Firstly, the one in which she chooses to share the Doctor’s burden in actually blowing up Vesuvius. Donna is certainly proving to be no back seat driver even this early on. And, secondly, when she demands the Doctor goes back and saves someone from the carnage. Never before have we seen the Doctor bow to such a wish. In the past, he’s even let his companions die rather than interfere with history. Perhaps he secretly knew that one family had to survive, but it seems much more likely that Donna’s heart reminded him of Rose’s ability to heal and cure his Time War battered 9th self, and this is the moment in which, to him, Donna becomes a true companion. He certainly goes on to welcome her aboard a lot quicker than he did Martha.

Now, in breaking news, try watching this episode again knowing that the High Priestess is played by Sally Smedley from Drop the Dead Donkey. Whatever would nanny have said?

Sing When You’re Losing

Doctor Who is no stranger to tackling stories about repression and subjugation – in fact a good many of its adventures have featured this set up in some form or another to drive its narrative along. In a number of these, the preconception tables have been turned and it is revealed that all is not what it seems. However, what makes Planet of the Ood unique in this framework is that we know the Ood are slaves, we’ve met them before in such a role in Series 2’s The Impossible Planet and The Satan Pit. What this story concerns itself with is why they are seemingly happy to do along with this role. Surely no race can be legitimately born into and be content to stay in servitude?

Landing on the Ood Sphere, the playful banter between the Doctor and Donna is in full force again – and Donna does something quite unique in the history of the show. Seeing that the place is ‘freezing’, rather than going through the rest of the story suffering in a costume ludicrously unsuitable for where they are, she pops back into the TARDIS and changes – just as the Doctor is giving one of his speeches that other companions would just be listening to in awe. Keeping with the Doctor’s speeches, once again we are given a lovely little tip of the hat to the classic series in this story, once again non-intrusively alluding right back to the Hartnell era.

Planet of the Ood itself is a morally complex tale. One minute we are forced into questioning why the Doctor almost let the Ood fall off his radar in their previous encounter – something that ‘just isn’t you’; in another we are shown humanity at its most base and corrupt. Everyone there is dealing in profit, feeling nothing for life form deemed lesser than itself – and yet, on the flip of that coin, are we really meant to feel good at seeing the Ood resort to their level when they slaughter a number of the humans around them? When it is revealed that the whole of this slave industry is built upon crude vivisection rather that a desire to please, it is hard to shake to uncomfortable feeling that yes, some of these humans really did deserve to die.

Once again, Donna is the most humane character in the events of the story. Quickly banishing her disquiet at seeing an Ood, she feels for it as it dies, and later on, when the Doctor allows her to hear the Ood's captive lament, she openly weeps for them, demanding the Doctor remove her ability to listen to it. In that moment, Donna and the audience gain a valuable insight into the Doctor – he can’t switch that sound off, it’s with him constantly. Just what the Doctor is aware of and how humans are incapable of sharing that knowledge and awareness would return much later in this series, to devastating effect.

Talking of events yet to come, this episode ends with yet another prophesy. Addressing our time travelers, the Ood announce that, “Your song must end soon …” Is this an allusion to impending regeneration, or could it be a more personal message for Donna? As a viewer we just add this to the growling list of cryptic layers building up around the stories we are watching. Even this early on in the show's run, just three episodes in, there is much to debate and muse about.

So, as the Odd-Christened ‘Doctor Donna’ leave the Ood Sphere behind, they’re ‘on their way to fresh adventures’. However, someone will bring them back down to Earth - and not necessarily just former companion, Martha Jones.

Symbiosis

I've also written this for: www.thedoctorwhoproject.com

Go there to download.

Professional Stuff (yes - a plug)

Just found this. Matt Evenden made a mock up BBC book cover of my Centenarian story (based on a doodle I did) and here it is:

Thanks Matt!