Doctor Who: 'Cold War

Written by: Mark Gatiss

Guest Starring: David Warner, Liam Cunningham

Directed by: Douglas Mackinnon

During a mining and training run beneath the North Pole, the crew of a Russian submarine discover something hidden in the ice. Before too long, Mutually Assured Destruction is seeming all too real a possibility…

Now that’s a bit more like it!

After two episodes which have been more or less good, it falls to Mark Gatiss to really wow the audience. Cue the return of a fan-favourite antagonist, an enclosed space, a riff or two on ‘Alien’, and relax.

Gatiss has written for the show before, of course. His first contribution was ‘The Unquiet Dead’, back with Christopher Ecclestone – a solid episode, memorable mainly for being the episode with Charles Dickens. For David Tennant, he produced ‘The Idiot’s Lantern’ – not particularly brilliant, but probably unfairly maligned, and most recently heavily plundered by Steven Moffat for ‘The Bells of St John’. Working with Moffat and Smith, he has written ‘Victory of the Daleks’ and ‘Night Terrors’ – both were fantastic ideas, and indeed pretty good episodes up until the half hour mark, at which point they both seemed realise there were only fifteen minutes left to wrap everything up, resulting in Spitfires that can be retrofitted for space travel in under five minutes (in-universe), and an incredibly powerful alien that can be soothed with a single hug.

None of his episodes have been bad, but equally, none of them have been particularly great. ‘Victory…’ and ‘Night Terrors’ both had potential, but would probably have benefited from a second part to allow the concepts to really develop. However, that is a criticism that you could level at the vast majority of the show since the revival.

‘Cold War’ is by far and away the best thing he has written for the show.

It is, of course, a classic idea, and something that the show has traditionally excelled at: take a scary, dangerous creature, and trap it somewhere with the heroes. See also: ‘Dalek’, from series one, at least half of Steven Moffat’s episodes, certainly before he became showrunner. In restricting himself to a less showy central concept, Gatiss seems to have been able to focus more on writing a really good script; most of the best lines went to Warner’s rather un-professorial Professor, with his love for Ultravox and Duran Duran, but there were plenty of good scenes to go around, with particular standouts being the Doctor’s first encounter with Skaldac and the subsequent ‘negotiation’, which also allowed Jenna Louise Coleman a chance to shine. That was probably one of Gatiss’s best touches, to be honest. Having the Companion realise that travelling with the Doctor isn’t all stars and adventures and weird sights, but pain and death and trauma isn’t an uncommon thread, but having it thrust so brutally in their face, and so early, is something new. Her scene with Warner was the best bit of the episode, and potentially Coleman’s finest work on the show yet.

Elsewhere, Matt Smith was on fine form once more, and Nicholas Briggs turns in a cracking, sibilant performance as Skaldac. Skaldac looks good, too, even when represented by CGI later in the episode. And it’s always nice to have an antagonist with depth; there aren’t too many occasions on the show where you feel sorry for the alien, although this is stretched with the whole nuclear annihilation thing. True boo-hiss villainy is reserved for the Russian officer who seemed all too eager to unleash said nuclear annihilation. Even Skaldac seemed to despise him (although refreshingly, all the other Russians were just people doing a job).

Complaints? Well…nothing, really. You could raise an argument that the resolution was very convenient, although it had been established earlier in the episode. The disappearance of the TARDIS, although obviously necessary for the episode, was a little bit cheesy. And I suppose it was rather formulaic, with no revolutionary or intriguing ideas to be seen. However, I’d far rather have a formulaic but good episode over an innovative but poor one. Top marks to Mr Gatiss.

Doctor Who: The Rings of Akhaten

Written by: Neil Cross

Directed by: Ferrun Blackburn

For her first proper journey in the TARDIS, Clara Oswald has a simple request; something awesome. The Rings of Akhaten certainly seem to fit the bill - one of the most diverse regions of the galaxy, in the midst of a spectacular, once in a millennium religious festival. However, the Queen of Years has disappeared, and that could lead to far, far, far bigger problems…

After last week’s solidly good but unspectacular opener, I was hoping for big things from ‘The Rings of Akhaten’. The writer, Neil Cross, is the brain behind one of the most highly regarded offerings from the BBC over the last few years, the crime drama ‘Luther’ (admittedly not something I’ve seen myself), and is certainly an out and out Whovian: he allegedly got the job by mentioning the show in every meeting he had with BBC staff until someone asked him if he was interested. In addition, the trailers looked very promising, with spooky aliens and stunning vistas galore, and a rather nifty space moped.

Sadly, the final result is not quite as awesome as Clara might have wanted.

The problems start with the opening sequence, as the Doctor stalks Clara from her parents first meeting, brought about by the most important leaf in the universe, through her birth, childhood, and eventually catching up with her right where we left her at the end of ‘The Bells of St John’. Viewed in isolation, it’s a great bit of writing and television. It fills in an awful lot of blanks in Clara’s backstory (presumably without revealing anything too important), it’s touching, and it makes Clara feel more like an actual character than a convenient mystery, building on last week’s episode. It is actually highly reminiscent of the wonderful montage sequence at the opening of Pixar’s ‘Up’. Put it in the context of the episode though, and it becomes a lengthy scene that, while of high quality and introducing a few things of thematic and plot importance for later, does take time away from the actual meat of the episode.

This more or less sums up the episode, in fact. There are so many good ideas in the script, but each one takes up time that leaves the plot leaving threadbare. Memories as currency? Brilliant. The most important leaf in the universe? Sweet, clever, and does at least have relevance – but still, ultimately, an idea that gets too much time devoted to it. The moped? Fairly cool, but it does seem rather redundant given the existence of the TARDIS. The most glaring example is the Vigil, the trio of aliens that seem to function as a kind of police force. They look sinister, and allow the Doctor to be badass, but they make two appearances, look threatening and wave their hands around, and then disappear never to be seen again. Some of the ideas could have been stripped out completely, and more development given to the ones that remained. Better yet, it would have been spread out over two episodes, which would have allowed all the great ideas room to breathe and still develop a good story – there are some cultural elements to the story that cry out for a deeper look but never even get considered.

This is not to say that the episode is a stinker, although if you read certain media reports and fan-sites you could be forgiven for thinking that; all the individual ideas are, as said, really rather good, the plot is a good one, albeit underdeveloped, there are some intriguing hints of the story to come, and there’s at least one moment that is probably going to be a stand out of the series – it may be a little cheesy, but I’m a sucker for the Doctor’s epic speeches. Given another episode to spread out over, it could well have been one of the best stories of certainly Smith’s run.

As it is though, another slightly underwhelming episode.

Doctor Who: The Bells of St John

Starring: Matt Smith, Jenna Louise Coleman, Celia Imrie

Written by: Steven Moffat

In the aftermath of the Ponds’ departure, and the second death of Clara Oswin in Victorian London, the Doctor has taken a sabbatical to contemplate the mystery of the Twice Dead Girl. Meanwhile, in present day London, there’s something in the WiFi…

It’s back!

The Doctor returns for his fiftieth anniversary, and the second half of series 7. Or series 8, if you prefer. Or, if you’re really old school, series thirty three (or thirty four, depending on whether you’re counting this as part two or a separate series…it’s no wonder the show has a fairly confusing continuity and mythology; you can’t even pin down how many series there are!). Anyway, however you’re counting it, he’s back. Arguably more importantly – in the sense that while you probably already know whether you like Matt Smith in the role, or Moffat’s direction for the show, most viewers have very little idea about her – Jenna Louise Coleman is debuting for the third time as the mysterious Clara Oswin Oswald. Yes, third debut. See above re: series numbers.

We’ve seen her before, of course, in last year’s episodes ‘Asylum of the Daleks’, where she played Oswin Oswald, an ace hacker, chef, flight attendant and insane killing machine, and in the Christmas special, where she played Clara Oswald, part time barmaid and governess in search of adventure. Both were excellent performances, and she clearly had a wonderful, sparky chemistry with Smith, making her in many ways the perfect candidate for the next companion. However, I must confess I was left a little wary by both her introductions. For one, they marked another companion who was seemingly extremely important to the plot – as in, a companion with a destiny. There have been quite a few of these companions since the show’s return, although possibly not to the extent that some corners of the fandom would have you believe. It amazes me just how many people from twentieth century UK turn out to be the linchpins for plots and conspiracies that span all of time and space. Indications that this series is going to have a plot arc of ‘Who is Clara?’ did not thrill me, particularly because I’m still waiting for a satisfying resolution to the whole business with the Silence. It wasn’t until watching ‘The Bells of St John’ that I finally twigged what it was that had put me off about Clara/Oswin in her previous appearances.

She was too much like River Song. Now don’t get me wrong, I like River. She’s great fun, and in some ways there’s nothing I’d rather see than the Doctor, River and maybe Jack Harkness bombing around the galaxy having crazy adventures. However, I recognise that she would not be the best companion in the long run, because she’s too good. Very, very clever, she can drive the TARDIS better than the Doctor can, rather badass, and with a mysterious past to rival the Doctor’s; put her in the show too often, as arguably happened with series six, and she can overshadow the main reason people watch the show. I realise now that I was concerned something similar would happen with Clara. A genius hacker, smarter in some respects than the Doctor, sassy, witty, sexy…stop me if it sounds familiar.

None of these things are bad things, of course. But when your lead character is an immortal alien with a genius level intellect, a time-travelling spaceship and around a thousand years of experience and knowledge in…pretty much everything you could ever think of, it can be a little hard to swallow when every third character is just as brilliant as he is, or comes with some sort of special destiny that makes them galactically, temporally and historically important. Oswin was great in ‘Asylum…’, and Clara was one of the best things about ‘The Snowmen’ (the best thing being Strax, the Sontaran butler). I just wasn’t sure I wanted an entire series of her.

I should have had more faith. In keeping with the fact that this is the third incarnation of the character, present day Clara was a very different creation to those that have gone before. Less worldly, mildly less sassy, much more vulnerable…there are hints of a rather sweet father/son relationship between them, a sharp contrast to the now fairly familiar companion with a crush or more on the Doctor. Once again, it was a cracking performance from Jenna Louise Coleman, bringing different shades to the role and keeping the winning chemistry going. More importantly, it feels like she’s going to showcase the wonder of the show. In the sense that this was an episode largely designed to sell her as the new companion, it was an absolute triumph.

In other areas, Matt Smith was typically brilliant, and the new type of relationship between Doctor and companion is allowing him to show off a few new nuances to the character, which is always a good thing. The idea of something attacking people through the WiFi was suitably creepy, although it did leave a few unanswered questions, the main one being how all those robots climbed out of people’s laptops…but I well know that expecting answers for every little thing in this show is unrealistic. I was more impressed by Celia Imrie as the delightfully Miss Kizlet, although her best moment was her heartbreaking final scene. Lots of cool stuff happened, and it was all great fun, and well-acted, directed and written.

However, there is no denying that it was an episode that did pretty much everything by the book. Individual scenes and performances were spectacular, but the episode as a whole lacked that little bit of extra oomph. This might not have been quite as noticeable if it weren’t for the fact that Moffat was very obvious about the things he’d recycled from earlier episodes. The spooky catchphrases, the uncanny valley, robotic enemies…even the main body of the episode. People getting trapped in their computers, staring out from the screen and begging to be released? Looks like someone just re-watched The Idiot’s Lantern, Mark Gatiss’s episode from David Tennant’s first series, which revolved around…people getting their souls trapped in the television, and featured various different shots of people looking out from television screens, begging for release.

There’s nothing wrong with recycling good ideas, of course, and all of these things were good when they first appeared, and good in The Bells of St John. But as I said, they did emphasise the standard nature of the episode. Nothing in it was particularly bad, and a lot was very good. Sadly though, it proved to be a little less than the sum of its parts.

Rating: 4 out of 5.