TV: In the Forest of the Night

 

review by Matt Michael (Twitter | Season to Taste Podcast)

Some Doctor Who stories have the capacity to massively divide opinion. Kinda (another story set partly in the forest and partly in the world inside the characters’ heads) was hailed as a masterpiece at the same time as it plummeted to the bottom of that year’s DWM poll. More recently, Love & Monsters provoked a totally marmite response. In the hours since In the Forest of the Night aired, I’ve had some friends who’ve generally loved this year mail me to say how awful they thought it was, and others not yet sold on the Capaldi era delighted by what they saw.

Let’s be honest: there’s a lot of stuff that doesn’t quite work, or feels like the author wasn’t thoroughly briefed on the preceding episodes. So, for example, none of the children recognises the Doctor as the funny caretaker from a few weeks ago. Clara’s eleventh hour decision not to save the children is sort of understandable, but hard to swallow. London’s oddly deserted, except for the one mother searching for her daughter in the forest. The Tinkerbell creatures have such over-processed voices that key bits of dialogue are about as comprehensible as one of McCoy’s monologues. The climactic reappearance of Maebh’s sister was an unnecessary touch, and along with the Doctor urging Maebh not to take her medication, suggests that Frank Cottrell-Boyce has become so caught up in his fairy tale that he’s become irresponsible

However, the impression I got at the end is that this episode largely achieves what The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe was striving for: a child’s fantasy of the forest, of Mother Nature and the mythical history of England, where ancient spirits lurk in forgotten corners, to be summoned in our hour of greatest need. The threat was broadly the same: fire from above that triggers a Gaia-type response from the planet. Even the villains – humans hiding in hazmat suits – looked like the bad guys from Androzani, as out of place in this forest of London as a yeti in the loo.

This wins out over the earlier story partly because the set-up is more gripping: a forest growing overnight across the whole planet, with imagery lifted straight out of JG Ballard – Trafalgar Square wreathed in creeping vines and vast jungle canopies, and escaped zoo animals lurking, menacingly, in the undergrowth. Partly its because the fables invoked are so much more primal than Narnia – Little Red Riding Hood running from the wolves; the trail of breadcrumbs; the brave woodcutter who arrives, with a torch instead of an axe, to save the day. 

But ultimately, I think the episode works because it’s subversive in the same way as the 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony was: Clara offers Danny the majesty of travelling the universe, but his retort is that it’s what you make of the world you have that’s important. The Doctor doesn’t need to save the planet from the storm, humanity just needs to save ourselves from our own short-sightedness. The astonishing power of the TARDIS becomes a science museum for kids – kids who aren’t really the most gifted and talented, just ordinary British children doing the best they can. The Olympic Ceremony said, ‘Britain gave the world all these awesome things – but the most important of them is what we made here. We built Jerusalem – or at least the NHS – in England’s green and pleasant land.’ In that respect, Cottrell-Boyce has been channelling the spirit of William Blake for a long time.

I think, like Kill the Moon, this was a story about the choices we make for ourselves. It explicitly positioned the Doctor as a cranky outsider – the mythical Last of the Time Lords – and placed the future of Earth in the hands of its children. Capaldi’s still a spiky, unpredictable presence – he’s not become mellow and cuddly as many predicted he would across the course of the season, but is still half Tom Baker in Horror of Fang Rock and half Sylvester McCoy on steroids. Brilliantly, he makes no allowances for children – but then, I guess to a thousand-year-old alien we must all look like toddlers.

Clara has changed though – preferring death with Danny over a life with the Doctor as the last human. The moment when she decides – without offering them a say – that the children will die with the Earth is a genuinely, and I think deliberately shocking moment: a kind of pay off to Kill the Moon and Flatline. Clara’s been forced to think and choose like the Doctor, on behalf of the whole human race – and what does that make her?  Which leads in to that ridiculously overblown and utterly brilliant “Next Time – The Finale Begins!” I have no idea where this season is heading, but I definitely want to be there.

many thanks to 

Matt Michael (Twitter | Season to Taste Podcast)

TV: Flatline (Newsom)

review by Tom Newsom (Twitter | Flickr | Blog)

It’s new territory for Doctor Who, or maybe it’s a return to an old staple. After last week’s upper class art deco spaceship, the show brings us right down to earth to a council estate. In Bristol. It’s never really acknowledged a world of community service and graffiti, but the episode breezes past that and straight into a big old monster movie. It’s more Misfits than the Powell Estate, and a lot like Attack the Block. And putting aside the unique monsters and how it gets the Doctor out of the picture, Flatline is refreshingly low concept - and like most of this series, refreshingly free from the history of the series. It’s Clara on an adventure trying to beat the monsters and protect people.

It’s obvious that by separating her from the Doctor, Clara gets lots to do here. The latest in her arc plot ties up and moves forward the discord of the last episode. Their continuing relationship was left mostly ambiguous last time, and that continues this week as she takes on the traditional lead role. Her struggles to lead her team of survivors and protect them is making her get closer to understanding the Twelfth Doctor, but his noticing those changes troubles him. It’s Frank Skinner’s “this job could change a man” line writ large: is Clara lying to herself, as well as Danny and the Doctor? Or being selfish and, well, Doctor-like? However the series decides to continue it, it feels great that Clara herself is at the heart of her own story this year (if that’s not a tautology for the Impossible Girl).

Whilst Clara takes centre stage, that doesn’t mean the Doctor isn’t there: he’s in the background talking to himself and giving a snarky running commentary on it all. The writer, Jamie Mathieson, has proved he has a great sense of irony that fits in with the best that Doctor Who has to offer. The Doctor’s situation isn’t exactly played for laughs but it’s often very very funny, exploiting every visual gag it can. It’s the sort of setup which sounds bonkers on paper in a bad way, and looks bonkers on the screen in a good way. The effects are often pleasingly low budget (hands sticking out of model TARDISes, false perspective on the actual TARDIS set), clever solutions to what was no doubt a whole load of directorial headaches.

That contrasts with the ultra cool monsters the Boneless who take all sorts of forms as they try to push themselves into our world. These make for some great set-pieces, particularly a perilous moment in a living room that makes a perfect ‘playground game’ out of the episode. The rippling monster effects look absolutely beautiful, and the rest of the episode looks very stylish too, something hard to do when it’s not all space galaxies and starlight. Both the 2D and 3D incarnations of the monster are creepy, with the latter reminding me of badly sculpted toys, uncanny valley style. Like many previous episodes in the series, the sound effects make it all the more creepy.

It’s an episode that feels traditional on the surface - it’s the Doctor and Clara against scary monsters. And that’s not even a criticism, we haven’t had that sort of story in ages. But there’s plenty more to enjoy, a very new configuration of the show that does everything at once. Hilarity mixed with horror, fitted snugly into forty five minutes, which makes this an exquisite bite of Doctor Who.

 

 

many thanks to

Tom Newsom (Twitter | Flickr | Blog)

TV: Mummy on the Orient Express (Newsom)

review by Tom Newsom (Twitter | Flickr | Blog)

Sixty-six seconds to sum this one up? Oh, well, it’s set on a train in space, it’s a claustrophobic monster movie, the Doctor’s got to work out how the monster works in order to stop it. There’s a big starry cast, great design work, and it rolls along. It’s smart, it’s quite memorable, and the mummy’s really terrifying and oh crumbs, I haven’t even finished yet...

This episode does everything that Doctor Who should be doing. It’s a slick, classy, classic, traditional adventure. The title appears to give away the tone from the off - Agatha Christie meets horror, and it does them both splendidly - but this is smart and ingrained and Doctor Who in its own right. In forty five minutes, much of the Orient Express setting is background detail, but what detail - a futuristic art deco setting, updated without any fanfare, played straight and solidly. Even the sweet anachronistic cover from Foxes (nice to know there’s someone else who’s picked an unwieldy nickname) screams anachronism but in a fun way. It wouldn’t take Jo Grant long to realise this isn’t on Earth, even without any rubber headed aliens.

The train going through space is wonderful fairy-tale imagery, but the straight-out-of-a-horror-film mummy feels both incongruous and very real. Often shot through a varifocal lens to only pick out the gruesome details, it shambles along unstoppably and unknowably. It even looks creepy when it’s in the background behind somebody speaking. And if you listen closely you can hear Robert Holmes cackling as it sticks its rotting fingers through the Doctor’s head. There’ll be nightmares again tonight.

I love a good mystery, and I love a well-plotted episode of Doctor Who. The plot could be described as traditional - the companion and the Doctor get split up for most of the action, which is a rarity nowadays - but it’s pacey, it’s well condensed. The explanation for the mummy is far cleverer than most too, as well as being thematic for the rest of the season - we’ve had so many soldiers turn up so far, the Doctor should be kicking himself for not getting it sooner. It’s hardly guessable, that misses the point and the thriller genre this tries to fool you into thinking it belongs to, but it makes good sense. Again, the ending skips over the boring bits after the monster is defeated and, intentionally or not, adds another layer of mystery to the Doctor. Like Clara, we could almost believe he left everyone else to get burned up - after all, he did so in Time Heist!

I try not to make too many comparisons to old episodes of the show, but I’d compare this one with The God Complex from a few years back, with another mysterious monster in a familiar setting bumping people off (completely coincidentally, both by writers of Being Human!). Only, this story felt more fun somehow, with the characters and design ramped up to absurdity, the idea of a scary semi-invisible mummy being on board made the episode a whole lot sweeter. It’s the epitome of a show that knows it’s often ridiculous but steams on with perfect judgement and direction. The God Complex notably went for full on tension - hello again 12 rating! - and the Doctor and his companions railing against not being able to stop the piling body-count. Here it’s done subtler and therefore becomes more palatable. This Doctor doesn’t - immediately - care for every single life, especially if he knows they’re going to die anyway. The show rightfully doesn’t ask us to mourn for people we’ve hardly seen, nor does it play it for laughs. It’s that right tone of serious flippancy that people want - from Doctor Who, from episodes of Poirot and Miss Marple too.

Because like Poirot, there’s a big cast of actors in small roles, though each has a niche and a character and a chance to shine - Christopher Villiers, David Bamber, Daisy Beaumont - even Janet Henfrey, playing another old bat, who’s only in it for precisely sixty-six seconds! John Sessions provides a great ‘who’s that?' voice to ponder, pleasantly not sending up the upper-class computer voice. And Frank Skinner nails the delivery of each line, especially the jokes - although not at the end, as that man clearly wanted to stay on board the TARDIS forever.

And then there’s Peter Capaldi, who is given tons to do this week, tons of emotions and character. I think I liked him in this episode more than any of the others, with just the right combination of facets shown here: he’s a Doctor who’s snarky about people dying and big scary monsters but not flippant, and who might not have a plan but whose hearts are in the right places. Given that this episode was written after the character was cast, unlike some of the earlier episodes, I’d be happy to see this being the ‘definitive’ Twelfth Doctor if such a thing will exist, much in the same way that The Lodger seemed to set a new mould for writers to work with for Matt Smith’s Doctor.

With the Doctor taking most of the action, Clara plays second fiddle, though notably not the traditional companion role of running after him asking questions. And curiously, I didn’t think that she was going to be in this - why would that be deliberately kept quiet? Perhaps to make the ending of last week’s look final? She’s subtly different from the start, which added to the confusion, not quite letting herself get involved and become won over again, and happily gets a chance to talk things over with Daisy Beaumont’s character. Both the episode and her arc in it seems to be reaching out to the people who complained last week saying: “this is why you love it, honestly.” Clara is our audience identification in this, in that we’d want more after seeing this particular adventure. The writing is clever: this time it’s presented as an addiction for her, which fits in with all the life juggling we’ve seen so far. Clara can’t give it all up and never see this man again any more than we can.

review by Tom Newsom (Twitter | Flickr | Blog)

TV: Kill the Moon (Tom Newsom)

review by Tom Newsom (Twitter | Flickr | Blog)

“How would you like being the first woman on the Moon?” the Doctor tells realistic schoolgirl Courtney, and with that we’re taken into this week’s adventure which definitely gives you something to think about.

The episode promises Aliens but gives us a discussion on murder, or even abortion. The Ark in Space stuff is almost window dressing - admittedly the best looking window dressing we’ve had in years, as the volcanic Moon landscape being awe inspiring. Filming in bright rocky Lanzarote rather than a quarry or sandpit was a great choice, as is the muted grey/orange colour scheme. And it’s not just the visuals that are gorgeous, the direction overall is strong and the tone is tight. There’s mystery, there’s some proper scares from the ‘spiders’ and cobwebbed corridors (textbook creepiness), there’s funny lines too - but the episode, and the plot, is centred on the decision whether or not to ‘Kill the Moon’ rather than the visuals.

It’s not every day that the series goes all philosophical, though there are examples in recent years - The Beast Below had a similar, if less bleak, scenario, and The Waters of Mars featured another pioneering but doomed space crew. But this feels genuinely new territory for the show in a similar way as Listen, perhaps because it’s written (superbly) by a new writer to the show, Peter Harness. The default setting this series is ‘deep’: every episode has big running themes in the background, complex main characters (plural), nuanced motivation and grey areas, even more pronounced than in Moffat’s earlier Who. These are big, brave questions (do they have the right?) that sci-fi can do so well, and this one sticks in the mind.

And especially brave is that it’s an episode that didn’t present one clear view for us to root for - not even Clara was sure of the correct decision. Admittedly I wanted to see more of the ‘spiders’, certainly more of the threat that this creature apparently posed, more than a hologram and a description of life back on Earth. But all it needed from the other viewpoint in the end was the understated bleakness of the scene of Earth reacting to Clara’s impassioned speech by switching off their lights, by wanting to kill the thing that is killing them. It seemed a very realistic view of a future Earth (though a bit unfair for only the half of the world that’s in darkness to be able to vote, no?), if lacking in humanity. It’s a trait also evident in Hermione Norris’s quietly strong performance as the suicide-mission leader (she looked natural in a spacesuit to me, or maybe I’m just remembering Outcasts), and of course the Doctor.

He’s adopted a policy of not caring, and still remains an unknowable rather than truly unpredictable figure, a walker in eternity and above humans, whether they’re astronauts, scientists, schoolteachers or children. It’s bringing the character’s more alien traits to the forefront, but with the benefit of strong writing and acting that makes it more interesting than ever. And again, what the Doctor knows and decides to tell us affects the story (the dilemma changing to killing a living creature rather than a lump of rock), a bit like the problems in Listen, in Time Heist, and his reluctance to share information in The Caretaker.

Which means Clara’s exit at the end of this episode comes more out of the blue, this episode being the final straw after similar dangers in a series where some viewers have questioned why she kept travelling with this new Doctor. It’s written as cleverly and as complex as the rest of the episode: it’s the Doctor’s automatic faith in her to be the best of humanity that is pushing her away. Clara’s grown into a fully rounded, flawed character and perversely that means that she isn’t ‘companion material’ any more, unlike many of her predecessors that apparently put up with it. She’s not special.

Jenna Coleman sells this change for us perfectly - I’m sure everybody else must have teared up from seeing her and the Doctor’s reactions - and she’s more downbeat earlier in the episode too, with Courtney getting most of the quirky lines. It’s a natural performance of someone who isn’t comfortable with travelling with the Doctor, and this time she’s being pushed too far. Her scene with Danny Pink at the end is glorious (so reassuring to see him again, especially back to nice accepting mode) though painful for her. To use Tegan’s words, “it’s stopped being fun”.

But isn’t that a downside to this episode of Doctor Who, a lack of fun? There’s the dry coldness of the setup (more manufactured than most - it’s a big sell that we’re rushed into very quickly at the beginning) and a general lack of humanity as well as a lack of action. Certainly very little has changed physically by the ending - Clara cleverly second guesses the idea that they can’t destroy the Moon, but in the end, it’s still there - is that an anticlimax? The Doctor’s speech and the scenes at the end help cover up the lack of impact on the rest of the world or other characters, but the story only really affects Clara - and even that’s down to what the Doctor didn’t tell her rather than the scenario itself.

And even in the less philosophical episodes like The Caretaker, there’s been a huge increase on sniping between the main characters, which isn’t to everyone’s taste. After the previous episode, splitting the Doctor and Clara up at the end here in a complex fashion feels like it wants the audience to pick a side: is Clara being selfish, or is the Doctor? Viewers can all too easily fall into the trap of disliking the main character or the hero, and then it can be not so fun anymore, even if it is interesting to watch.

That is, unless viewers (and reviewers!) simply accept that this new show is ambiguous - science fiction and fantasy with gloriously deep drama, telly that you can get out of it whatever you want, depending on how much you want to analyse it. It might not be to everyone’s taste, but I think it’s a bold, certain step for probably the most analysed show ever. A series that can have Time Heist, The Caretaker and Kill the Moon one after another - mad ideas, character drama, action and scares and food for thought, and always always craziness - it’s why we love Doctor Who.

Because next week: killer mummy - in space!

many thanks to

Tom Newsom (Twitter | Flickr | Blog)