In our first non-Steven Moffat written episode, things suddenly start to get very fan-wanky. Of course, we also finally get an on-screen death. So those two factors probably balance out. The episode itself seems to have been fairly divisive, often hilariously so, judging by online reactions. I like Mark Gatiss as a writer and an actor, and some pacing problems aside, I mostly liked the episode. But it’s certainly one of the more arguable stories.

Continuing on from the cliff-hanger of last week, which gives us five episodes in a row (six if you count “The Waters of Mars”) that carry on directly from the end of the previous episode (a meaningless factoid, really, but like I said, fan-wanky), the Doctor and Amy find themselves in the Cabinet War Rooms in the midst of the Blitz. And our first plot hiccup occurs, as it now seems that the Doctor’s old friend Winston Churchill (cue fan-wank as people rush to figure out how the Doctor and the Prime Minister could have encountered each other before, and why Churchill isn’t bothered by the Doctor having a new face) simply called him over to show off his new weapons. When it is revealed that this entire enterprise is merely the Daleks being clever for once and exploiting a tactic other than “massive and overwhelming show of force to show off how good the computer animation system is at modeling thousands of Daleks at a time,” that just begs the question of how the Daleks knew that Churchill would call up the Doctor. Or did they simply plan to disrupt time enough during the second World War that the Doctor would eventually notice? Or is the Dalek’s plan not actually constructed enough by the writers to hold up to any serious scrutiny?

As for the Daleks themselves, their new/old look seems to have sparked some angry backlash in certain corners. It’s been noted, many times, that for a show that thrives on reinvention, fans of Doctor Who are resistant to even minor changes. I’m going to go on record as being a fan of the new look for the Daleks. I’m even a fan of the new status quo, where each different color denotes a different status and rank. It’s a move away from the “big mass of Daleks” approach that the new series used and in some ways a move back towards the earliest Dalek stories. The color choices are certainly a call back to the sixties. I also thought it was fairly clever that the actual question of which precise Daleks these are that have been resurrected is vague enough to invite speculation. To me, the coloring and the fact that the new series Daleks are explicitly identified as “not real Daleks” suggests that these are the original time-line, pre-”Genesis of the Daleks” Daleks (which would mean, oh hey, fan-wank). And if you’re not an obsessive over Dalek continuity, who they are precisely is mysterious and unsettling, as the big, scary, universe-conquering Daleks of the new series are groveling themselves to them. It was also incredibly refreshing to have the Daleks back, properly, at the end of the story. Not “wiped out from existence for ever and all time. Again.” But back, and out somewhere in the universe plotting. Daleks aren’t supposed to be stupid, and this bit of subterfuge on their part that ends with their return as a constant back-ground menace for all of time and space is long overdue if the show plans to keep using them.

There are really only two distinct elements of the episode that disappointed me. The first is that it is paced very oddly. A big, spectacular outer-space dogfight between spitfires and a Dalek saucer is an exciting, iconic moment for the show. It’s such a pity that it also wasn’t the end of the episode. There’s a bit too much of a “too many endings” thing going on here. It’s especially frustrating because the “real” ending of the episode, the moments when Amy and the Doctor try to bring out the humanity in Professor Bracewell, was the dullest thing about the story. The robot that wants to be human…sorry, but I’ve seen it too many times. Read Pinocchio, seen the Disney film, seen the horror parody, even been to the sculpture garden in Collodi…I’m pretty much done with the “wants to be a real boy” theme in literature.

And while the last shot pan in on a crack moment is repeated from the previous episode, which was a bit of a groan-inducing moment, as far as ongoing plot threads are concerned, the revelation that Amy has no idea what a Dalek is, is more promising. It was hinted in the first episode that the Doctor knows that there is more to Amy than there appears to be, and the question of how it can be that a girl from 2010 hasn’t heard about Daleks and doesn’t remember planets in the sky is one that’s worth exploring.

Brak the Barbarian, 1977, John Jakes
Ah, the 70s…when a mass-market paper-back could put a woman rimming a man on the cover and no one gave it a second glance.

Over at the Bureau Chiefs, Ken Lowery and I look at the trailers for May’s big film releases. So head on over there if you want to know what Ken and I think of Iron Man 2, Prince of Persia, Survival of the Dead and…Just Wright? Really?

Hmmm…Prince of Persia…

Hey, what do you know, I managed to find a context-appropriate reason to run a picture of shirtless Jake Gylennhaal!

Over at the Bureau Chiefs, I take a look at the Free Comic Book Day titles available from comic book shops this Saturday as part of the event.

It’s the usual mixed bag of titles to pick up, titles to leave behind, and books that you’re getting for free, so what are you complaining about?

After having to deal with so many built-up expectations from the audience in the previous episode, it’s perhaps not surprising that Steven Moffat goes a little lower-key for the second episode. Continuing straight on from the previous episode, the Doctor takes Amy into space, in a shot that continues that dream-like, surreal tone from before, with Amy dangling in space, held in place by her foot. A chance encounter with a space-ship housing the entire population of the United Kingdom prompts the Doctor to land and poke around with Amy. Who is still in her nightie.

What the Doctor and Amy find is a population gripped in the fear and paranoia of a police state. Or, well, that’s what the Doctor says, anyway. We see so little of the society in question that we more or less have to rely on his word that things are terrible; opening scene of children being dropped into hellish firey voids aside. The story is far stronger in emphasizing that the Doctor is noticing that something is wrong with the space-ship via the observation that water doesn’t vibrate in glasses-an impossibility for a supposed ship of this size, and the population’s avoidance of the gruesomely over-cheerful “Smilers” that mark another example of Moffat’s use of strange enemies over traditional monsters. The notion that the Doctor is clever enough to have marked that something is going wrong, and in a potentially nasty way, is more convincing than the immediate leap to “police state” that he does actually make.

And that’s where the episode feels a little flat. With all this talk of “police states” and voting booths in the episode, it feels like Moffat is trying his hand at sneaking some political satire into the show. That’s not exactly something new for the series, but when it was done in the past you felt like there was some real bite behind it. It’s not hard to draw a comparison between the Smilers and the proliferation of public security cameras in England that armchair libertarians like to complain about, especially with a voice-over upon the Doctor and Amy entering the market that “you are being observed.” But while state controlled observation of public spaces is creepy and potentially intrusive, it’s a big leap to go from there to “murderous robots that kill anyone who doesn’t meet the completely undefined standards.” It feels like there’s more potential in the voting booths, where every five years the public learns the horrible truth about what is really going on in their home, only to choose to forget about it and go on with their lives for another five years. On the verge of an election with far-reaching consequences for both the United Kingdom and the world, mocking public apathy at the polls is perfectly fine. But it’s also easy and hollow and somewhat adolescent. Maybe if the leadership of Starship U.K. had “sexed up” some intelligence reports to justify a war with Starship Iraq it would feel like it had more bite, or if a media mogul from Starship Australia told the public that they all had voted to protest when they actually all voted to forget.

Luckily, while the heart of the episode is a bit…mushed, the rest of it is still pretty good. A big part of it is the performance of Sophie Okonedo as Liz Ten, a mysterious masked woman who helps the Doctor and Amy in their bid to discover the secret of the starship and turns out to be the Queen. It’s a fun performance, engaging and effortless, and immediately and immensely likable. One of Moffat’s strengths as a writer is creating memorable secondary characters, and she’s one of his best.

The Doctor and Amy relationship develops nicely here, too. Matt Smith’s Doctor comes more into his own, and is less the David Tennant Mark II he comes across as once or twice in “The Eleventh Hour.” While the “the Doctor doesn’t ignore crying children” motif is layed on a bit thick, more definitive and believable character traits emerge. He’s much more impulsive, hitting the protest button in the voting booth more to see what will happen and leaving Amy to wander around the ship on her own. He’s also somewhat less arrogant here. The tenth Doctor would have happily overthrown Liz Ten’s government, consequences be damned. He’d done it before, with disastrous consequences that he never really owned up to. That the Doctor would even consider killing another being for the greater good is a massive change in character, something that the seventh Doctor would have done in the “New Adventures” period.

It was also good to see that Amy started to realize that running off with the Doctor was, perhaps, too impulsive an act. It softens her character and is a good step towards making her less clingy and emotionally dependent on the Doctor. Her sudden flash of insight, that the star whale is just like the Doctor, and thus must be attached to the ship of its own volition is stretching a little too much maybe. It’s a nice thematic comparison and ties the episode together nicely, but it’s a little out of left field. And doesn’t really address the fact that the whale is still, you know, apparently eating people.
Which the Doctor is apparently okay with.
Well, that is a change in tone for this season.

Little Fuzzy, unknown ed., H. Beam Piper
An evil corporation wants to exploit an idyllic world. They are opposed by a lone Earthman who has discovered that the adorable natives are actually intelligent.
Huh…now why does that plot sound so…recent?

This new series of Doctor Who brings in almost as many changes as the 2005 revival of the series did. New Doctor, new companion, new TARDIS, new theme-tune, new style, new producers and new lead writer. It’s a potentially risky move; arguments have been made that the success of the new series has more to do with certain segments of fandom thinking David Tennant is dreamy than any actual interest in the story of an alien time-traveler who keeps interfering in human history. Fortunately it’s a move that payed off, as “The Eleventh Hour” is excellent both as a continuation of the series relaunch and as a new episode of that show that started in 1963.

The big and most notable change is the new Doctor, played by Matt Smith. He’s manic and gangly and all angles, and it shouldn’t work, but somehow it does. He has a face that manages to be both young and old, and he plays the role of the Doctor as a slightly mad, self-aware, oddball of a figure. You’re never quite sure if he’s being deliberately funny or obtuse or just genuinely out of step with the world around him. It’s a decidedly more comic approach to the role, and frankly a welcome relief after the angst that so often infused the performances of Eccleston and Tennant.

Karen Gillan is pretty amazing as new companion Amy Pond as well. She’s strikingly lovely, easily the best looking companion since Freema Agyeman (and before her, Mary Tamm). It’s hard to get an entirely firm grasp on her here. She’s presented as a “feisty” companion, but that’s not particularly new as all the new series companions have pushed back against the classic series stereotype of the female companion as a useless screamer who only exists for the Doctor to exposition at. What’s new here is actually more of a call-back to an older style of companion. There’s no hint of a romantic longing for the Doctor in her, nor does their relationship seem to be as “matey” as it was between the Doctor and Donna. Instead it seems to be more of a fatherly, or grandfatherly, relationship between the two (saucy glances at the naked Doctor notwithstanding). A lot of this comes from the rather clever method that Amy is introduced, not as an adult but as a child who has a brief encounter with the Doctor and meets him again later. It’s a clever conceit; Amy knows the Doctor so the mystery and “trust me” bits can be shortened and the story gotten on with. But it also suggests a certain degree of innocence to their relationship. The Doctor is her imaginary friend come to life, a parent substitute for a lonely little girl. It’s something we haven’t really seen in a companion since Ace, and before her you had to go back all the way to Zoe to find it.

It’s interesting in this context to note that Amy’s occupation is “kissogram.” It’s a rather appealingly cheeky trick that lead writer and executive producer Steven Moffat pulls off with that. It’s a slightly naughty, or at the very least flirty, occupation, the sort of thing that little kids will giggle at and think is very risque, but that adults will recognize as fairly innocent, if not more than slightly corny, despite the seedy connotations some would ascribe to it. It gives an adult edge to that dynamic between her and the Doctor, a reminder that at the end of the day she’s a grown woman, while still keeping the tone fairly innocent. About the only sour note that really strikes with Amy is an unpleasant reminder of the Rose/Mickey relationship when it comes to Amy and her quasi-boyfriend Rory. Mickey, it must be said, started off as more than a little bit of a prick. But over the course of two seasons it became clear that he had grown as a character but Rose was still the spoiled girl she started off as. Rory is not a prick. If anything, he seems a little too devoted, a little too puppy-dog in his admiration and devotion to Amy. It’s implied that Amy is having cold feet over her marriage to presumably Rory when she rushes off with the Doctor on their third meeting. That leaves a slightly sour taste in my mouth, though later episodes have mollified that as it becomes clearer that Amy leaves without any intention of malice, she just forgot herself in the moment (she does run off in her nightie, after all).

As for the rest of it: well, the story was pretty firmly in the tradition of a new series season opener. A threat that exposes the companion to the wonders and the dangers of the universe that the Doctor has to solve with a limited amount of tools at his disposal, with massive stakes even though, in contrast to every other enemy we’ll see this season, the villain here isn’t any great shakes. So it is with Prisoner Zero, an escaped shape-shifting alien that, yes, is putting people into comas so that it can impersonate them, but his/her/its jailers were planning to destroy the Earth to recapture it, which makes Zero’s villainy seem rather low-level by comparison, and not quite worthy of the death-sentence the Doctor apparently dooms it to. And the new TARDIS, well…I’m pretty firmly of the opinion that I never need to see anything that even hints at “steampunk” design ever again, so while the brass and glass console and expanded control room (with corridors! and stairs!) excites me, the hot water taps and typewriter make me cringe. But then, I was never really that enamored of the “coral” style console room either. I understand the necessity of giving the room some size and scale for a modern audience, and that the classical look is far too drab and modest for contemporary television, but the actual design just didn’t work for me. I like this one more, but with reservations. All the little moving bits and bobs on the console were interesting, though.

But the change that works best for me, I think, is the modest change in tone we see here. For a series about a time-traveler, the show rarely uses the actual mechanics of time as a plot device, with the notable exception of Steven Moffat’s scripts. We get some of that here, with the Doctor leap-frogging forward to different point’s in Amy’s life while she has to take the slow-way forward, and deal with the repercussions of that. Structurally it’s good, because as I said, it lets Amy “know” the Doctor without having to drag out the introduction more than necessary, and the introduction we do get with the Doctor and Amelia is easily the best Doctor/companion meeting in the history of the series. Actually dealing with time travel as a story theme strikes me as a good move. There’s a subtle change in story tone as well. While Russell T. Davies often focused on big, dramatic, soap operatic style stories and plot lines, there’s dreamier, more fairy-tale style at work here. There’s a certain surreality to the notion of a crack in time in a child’s wall or giant eyeballs flying through the air, and we’re reminded, twice, that even the name Amelia Pond is “a bit fairy-tale.” It’s also refreshing to see a story that takes place in a small village, a quieter place, that makes the menace feel a bit more personalized than yet another alien rampaging through London with no one really noticing. It’s a promising, exciting start to a new season, with strong hints of what’s to come.

Children of the Wolf, 1959, Alfred Duggan
Whatever happened to historical fiction? I mean, actual historical fiction, not porny romance novels masquerading as historical fiction.