Doctor Who - Dot And Bubble

TwitFace

Doctor Who -
Dot And Bubble
Airdate: 1st June 2024
BBC 1

Warning: Minor spoilers within.

Wow. A three in a row run of good episodes. Dot And Bubble is another above average episode of Doctor Who and my biggest question after seeing this current hat trick of pretty great shows is... what the heck were the BBC/Disney thinking by opening this season with two of the worst episodes possible? Why start off with the obvious duds?

So this one is about a society of rich kids who inhabit a planet where the one town, Finetime, is where they live and talk to each other on social media all day, including the ‘two long hours’ a day where they have to ‘work’. Their rich families pay for them to be there and many of them are incapable of even being able to walk around without the great holographic bubble of social media generated around their head, projected by the dot (aka, a flying drone) which generates the bubble. Which is a problem if, like the main and totally unsympathetic protagonist Lindy Pepper-Bean (played by Callie Cooke), all your friends are being eaten, alphabetically, by huge ‘digesting monsters’ and the only help you have are these two strangers who have infiltrated the social network, called The Doctor (played by Ncuti Gatwa) and Ruby Sunday (played by Millie Gibson).

Yeah, it’s tough trying to navigate streets by yourself with no arrows and instructions to show you how to move your feet. You will bump into lamp posts or you could, like many of Lindy’s friends, walk right into the giant stomach opening of various monsters walking... well, crawling... in the streets.

Now, this is proper science fiction, with a heavy dose of satire against both the generation of youth who spend all their time on various variants of social media (yeah, I’m probably guilty of that to an extent too... follow me on Twitter!) plus, basically, the dumb rich kids who are born into a privileged position in society. We’ve all met them... what’s in their wallet on any given day is way higher than their IQ. And I’ve got to hand it to Russell T. Davies, this episode was worthy and, quite in the style of, the late, great Philip K. Dick. In many ways.

And through it all, even though the episode is a pretty self contained story (and an excellent stab at ‘real’ sci-fi, for sure), they still manage to add another notch on the most blatant, so far, part of the underlying arc of the season. Namely, yep... another Susan Twist sighting. This time she’s playing the (dead but she doesn’t know it yet) mother of Lindy... but here’s the thing. Both The Doctor and Ruby react to her presence in this. The Doctor flags her as being the face and voice of the ambulances from the episode Boom (reviewed by me here) and Ruby also remembers her from somewhere else. And the hint there is, she maybe remembers her from last week’s alternate timeline and so, just like the timeline reset changed with Ruby having been to Wales three times instead of two, as originally stated at the opening of 73 Yards (reviewed here), it implies that we’re not completely done with the events of that last story yet. I hope that means we’re finally going to get some closure on just what the old lady version of Ruby was saying to terrify all those people... it’s a bit of an important and glaring omission (just as the previous David Tennant incarnation of the character not regenerating into Jodie Whittaker’s old costume hasn’t been credibly explained in the ‘in universe’ world... and it needs to be).

And, yeah, it was pretty great. The vapid and clueless losers who made up the entire (under 27) society of Finetime might just as well have had ‘conservative party’ stamped onto their foreheads. I think the current season of Doctor Who is certainly getting back on track and I think Dot And Bubble adds to the season considerably. That being said, next week’s so-called ‘Bridgerton’ episode is worrying me a bit. It’s the kind of programme I would naturally steer clear of so I hope the episode has something other than parody going for it. I guess I’ll find out in due time.

Doctor Who - Space Babies and The Devil's Chord

Baby’s In Black

Doctor Who
Space Babies
and The Devil's Chord
Airdate: 11th May 2024
BBC 1

Okay so, that wasn’t terrible and... it wasn’t great either. 

The new series of Doctor Who starring Ncuti Gatwa as the ‘fifteenth’ incarnation of everyone’s favourite timelord and Millie Gibson as his new TARDIS companion Ruby Sunday gets underway with, not one but the first two episodes of... I refuse to call it Season 1 just because Disney says so, the same as I refused to call the Christopher Eccleston debut Season 1 when the show returned in 2005... let’s just call it the new series, right?

So, anyway, much as I loved most of Russell T. Davies’ run on the Eccleston and Tennant seasons, I have to say that after last year’s four episodes, I’ve lost a lot of confidence in him and, yeah, I found these two new ones a bit of a mixed bag too. Sometimes verging on brilliance but somehow also giving me a lot of miss to neutralise the hit factor.

The first story, Space Babies, where the Doctor and Millie land on a mostly abandoned but still running baby farm on a space station was actually quite intriguing and, when the lone carer of the children is pretending to be a computer and having her words ‘filtered’ by the nanny persona, the writing is quite clever and witty. But I did feel the whole thing kinda died and was let down by the last fifteen minutes or so. I had to explain to somebody who was watching with me what the ending was because it wasn’t too clear for him and I explained the babies were headed for a planet with a name half taken from a character in The Quatermass Experiment (that would be Victor Caroon).

There were, however, some nice references to the past and some nice touches in reference to the ongoing mystery of Ruby Sunday’s origins and how, after the plot points raised by the ‘timeless child’ story arc at the heart of Jodie Whitaker’s incarnation of The Doctor, there are certain parallels between Ruby and the timelord. The moment where the memory of snow on the day The Doctor sees Ruby being left in a basket by someone in her past leaks into the current adventure and manifests itself in the space station, Tarkovsky-like, was a pretty nice moment. So, yeah, not all bad but, like I said, a terrible wrap up.

Hmm... moving onto The Devil’s Chord then, where the two travellers in time and space go to see The Beatles record their first album (and Cilla Black too) and things aren’t quite the 1963 they were expecting... was also an interesting set up. Although it was pretty noticeable from the outset that neither the BBC or even Disney had stumped up any cash to buy the rights to any of The Beatles songs. I mean... really? The one lone chord from the famous song A Day In The Life they used maybe doesn’t incur a copyright fee, is my guess. However, the story brought out a nice reference when The Doctor informs Ruby that both he and his granddaughter are currently living in another part of London in that time, recalling the first ever episode of the show in 1963 (although he doesn’t mention that he is also, simultaneously there in yet another part of London, if memory serves, in his Sylvester McCoy incarnation).

But the new villain who manifests to The Doctor with a ‘giggle’, recalling The Giggle episode from last year (reviewed by me here), is really over the top and overly campy and, honestly, just not much fun, it seemed to me. And the story was more than a little contradictory in terms of the state of music in the various time zones... why have pop artists recording songs at all if there’s no love of music in the world? Oh, and The Beatles looked nothing like them (I was somehow less confused between them by others in the room) but, I thought the young George Martin looked much more authentic.

But, did anyone notice there was snow again in this episode... and some Christmas. Guess this year’s Christmas special should provide some answers to the mystery of Ruby Sunday then, I reckon.

Also, was I right, despite what the IMDB says, in thinking that actress Susan Twist played different characters in both these episodes, just like she did in last year’s stories? Hmm... there’s always a twist in the end, right? Maybe it will be a twist featuring Susan, The Doctor’s granddaughter, who we last saw in the show in 1964? Methinks Russel T is playing games with the audience again, casting an actress with that name in recurring roles.

Anyway, there was a brilliant metatextual one liner about non-diegetic music in this episode which truly was a touch of brilliance, as was the diegetic piano tune from the pre-credits sequence morphing into the full bodied non-diegetic theme for the titles and then further morphing back into diegetic music at the start of the very next scene. Good stuff.

And talking of the scoring... Murray Gold is definitely back and the music feels somehow a lot better than it has in ages, it has to be said (I believe he also featured in the episode as himself but I didn’t spot him... wasn’t looking out for him, to be honest). But, overall, I have to say that the episode just felt a bit meh, brilliance aside. It didn’t grab me the way I’d hoped but, I do still live in hope that the series will get better, for sure.

Now then, one last thing. Millie Jackson is absolutely incredible and I already love her character and the way she performs it. Ncuti Gatwa... still not sure. Still seems to be way too touchy feely for me and somehow... dunno, can’t quite put my finger on it but, it’s early days and I’m not giving up on him just yet. Don’t quite like the way he’s playing him but he’s still shaping the character, I guess. Not to mention I’m still trying to get used to him... so there’s that.

Time, or the man made illusion of duration that it represents as a metaphorical abstract concept, will tell, I guess. I’ll definitely still be tuning in for next week’s episode, which sees former show runner Steven Moffat returning to writing duties. So we’ll see how that goes soon enough.

Doctor Who - The Star Beast

A Wolf In
Meep’s Clothing

Doctor Who - The Star Beast
Airdate: 25th November 2023
BBC 1 (co-produced with some other
evil studios who are ransoming it to
the rest of the world on a streaming
channel, thus becoming typical
Doctor Who villains).

So, Doctor Who - The Star Beast is the first of three Anniversary episodes to commemorate Great Britain’s favourite Timelord’s 60th year... puzzlingly airing two days after the actual 60th anniversary date but, it makes more sense to air it on the traditional Saturday evening anyway... back where it belongs. And it’s adapted from the always brilliant Pat Mills’ and Dave Gibbon’s Fourth Doctor comic strip from Doctor Who Weekly from way back when (to read more about that, see my very recent review of Doctor Who - The Fourth Doctor Anthology, right here). It also marks the return of David Tennant to the role of The Doctor, making TV history by playing a second incarnation of the Timelord (who mysteriously regenerated into new clothes too... I hope they address this issue soon) and the brilliant show runner who brought the show back in the early 2000s, Russell T. Davies.

I wasn’t sure how to feel about this, to be honest. I loved the majority of the Davies era and think the show started going progressively downhill since he left. Tennant is maybe my second or third favourite Doctor of all time and I know he can act the heck out of this role so, I wasn’t worried on his behalf but, I dunno, I had mixed feelings about all this.

And, yeah... maybe I was right to.

This new show was both brilliant but tempered with some really bad stuff also. Still, my favourite Camden Town shop, Cyberdog, was featured in a few shots at the start and end of the show so... that was cool. But yeah, seriously, I also had reservations about how long an adaptation of The Star Beast could take in terms of screen time... I guessed about 15 - 20 minutes but, of course, it’s a) not about jumping through sets of panels and b) there’s all the other stuff about why The Doctor has the same face, not to mention the fallout from what would happen to Donna Noble if she ever remembers The Doctor due to her life saving memory wipe (aka she will die).

Okay, so the story worked fairly well and, it was well performed by just about everyone... and some of the comical dialogue and physical comedy was fantastic. I’m not sure that The Meep came off as evil as it should have done from the comics but... the insectoid Wrarth Warriors were well handled and the bigger budget, presumably half funded by Disney, meant it feels a little more epic than we might have hoped for but, luckily, it was directed with a deft hand and it really somehow felt more like Doctor Who than it had in a while. So that’s all good.

There were problems with it too though, at least from my perspective.

Number one was the truly cheesy, break the fourth wall opening where The Doctor and Donna are kinda filling in the back story for people. Honestly, I suspect this was added after the ‘Disney masters’ or somebody overly cautious at the BBC panicked about it because there were two reasons why this sequence didn’t work. Firstly, standing in front of a screen and filling it in with special effects later, as we’ve seen on lesser shows like The Mandalorian, doesn’t have to look that cheap. Were those matte lines I could see around The Doctor? That doesn’t really matter though... it’s Doctor Who. It’s supposed to look cheap and wobbly. However, all the bits they filled the audience in on... which was admittedly needed at some point... are already firmly flagged up and highlighted to death within the story itself. It just felt like they were repeating themselves later and it rendered the opening sequence completely superfluous anyway. So why include the bloody thing in the first place?

Number two... when the show was relaunched with Eccleston and later Tennant, all of my friends who, I assure you, are all more ‘woke’ than me (which isn’t hard... so apologies for that, I guess... not really though, I am who I am) were complaining about how politically correct and tick boxy the show had become and, in the intervening years, that aspect just kept getting worse (alienating a lot of viewers, from what I could see). And, alas, this one is absolutely devoting loads of time to being horrendously twee and ‘down with the kids’ and, it felt like it was just ramming the whole mental illness rebranded issue and so on down the throats of the viewers. It’s fine though. Unlike some of the more tolerant and modern thinking people I sometimes deal with... I can totally live with it and just ignore it when it comes up... but just wish I didn’t have to. I’ve already had one derogatory text from a much more enlightened friend than I expressing a little disappointment with this angle on last night's episode. Still... it is what it is, I suppose.

Thirdly, the IMDB and various other outlets have been lying to us again. Listed in this episode’s credits are Jemma Redgrave, Bernard Cribbins and Bonnie Langford, returning to their respective roles but... nope... none of these people are present and correct here, I’m afraid. The show and disclosure of some of its contents was always deceitful in its marketing since its return in the early 2000s and, nothing has changed it seems. I get annoyed about this stuff but move on and just carry on trusting my own instinct about what’s going to happen next... rather than attempt to get my information from the ‘official source’, so to speak.

But, those three problems aside, the episode was a hoot and I mostly had a blast with The Star Beast. I especially loved Murray Gold's score and the way he kept teasing the old Tenth Doctor action music, All The Strange Creatures, in different tempos and orchestrations throughout the episode... the Tenth Doctor's theme in Fourteenth's clothing, so to speak. And I am looking forward to seeing where the TARDIS has fled to for the next chapter (and oh, by the way guys, lovely redesign on the regenerated interiors... shame you had to blow it all up only a couple of minutes after we get to see it). The next episode has been shrouded in secrecy so it’s the one people are most wanting to see, of course. I’ll probably be late to seeing that second one, unfortunately, due to an early Christmas function but, I am still hoping to get my review up next Sunday. It just might come in the evening rather than in the morning this time. Keeping my fingers crossed I won’t have to run something else and hold it over until Monday though. Allons-y!