Posts Tagged Doctor Who

The Reality War and the Future of Doctor Who

June 21, 2025 at 12:47 pm · Filed under Doctor Who, science fiction, TV Shows ·Tagged

6,513 words, 34 minutes read time.

Introduction

 It’s taken a while, but there’s a lot to say, so much that I’ve had to cut about half of what I said in my original draft. New information, rumours, gossip, speculation and leaked information from previously reliable sources, related to both the final episode of the season and the future/non-future of Doctor Whoin general, has been coming out almost by the hour. This hasn’t exactly made my task any easier. But you have to stop somewhere, and maybe I should stay away from Who-related YouTube podcasts for a while.

Anyway, here we go,

As I’m sure everybody who cares in the slightest knows by now, Billie Piper, formerly ‘Rose’, companion to Ecclestone’s Ninth and Tennant’s Tenth, is the next Doctor.

A close-up portrait of a woman with long, blonde hair and a warm smile, holding a microphone, against a softly lit background.
Billie Piper: the next Doctor?

Or maybe she isn’t.

I’ll return to that.

Either way, having her appear at the end of Ncuti’s regeneration scene looks like the last gamble of a desperate man. We know Russell T Davis (henceforth RTD or, simply Davies), likes to generate online ‘content’. If that was his aim, then he has been successful in that, if little else. But the general fan reaction has been overwhelmingly negative, and can he seriously have expected anything different?

Conversely, if he intended to end Doctor Who there, then it might have made some sense to have Billie, a rightly much-loved figure among fandom, be both the first and last face seen in the modern, post-2005, incarnation of the show.

But even RTD can’t be so arrogant as to believe he alone can choose when the show should end? His big talk of having written season 3 and much of season 4 already suggests he believes he can and should continue in his present position, but that’s starting to look less and less likely.

Imagine the horror of scripts written for Ncuti repurposed for Billie?

To the episode itself, the climax to not just one but two seasons’ worth of work, a full twenty-one episodes over approximately eighteen months, including the specials, the whole of RTD 2 so far, or, hopefully, the end of RTD 2 Full Stop.

Overview

 The Reality War was a convoluted mess. If it is to be the end of RTD’s second coming, then it’s a fitting epitaph to the lowest point in the history of the show.

 It’s telling that even those (the Shrills, as they are sometimes derisively known, and which would be a great name for Doctor Who monster) who’ve defended this period throughout have had to throw up their hands in a grudging signal of surrender as far as the finale is concerned. It’s been ages since anyone has claimed that I must be racist and/homophobic, or have it patiently explained to me online why being ‘woke’ is a good thing, because I’ve dared to criticise Gatwa’s incarnation of the Doctor and Davies’ determination to insert his political ideology into almost every episode.

Positives

The whole was such a disjointed, confused and credibility-stretching disaster that it seems wrong to single out individual elements that weren’t bad. Wong, and difficult.

Still, in the interest of balance…

  • My first watch was in a surprisingly packed Liverpool cinema surrounded by an equally surprisingly young demographic. They seemed to enjoy it. This was my first time watching Doctor Who on a big screen, and as an experience, it was interesting and fun. Not that my critical faculties were neutralised sufficiently by the reactions of others for me to think at any point that the episode itself was good. 
  • I liked some of the set design, most of which I mentioned in my review of the last episode, Wish World. In particular, I liked the Bone Palace, especially the Steampunk ‘Doubt Counter’ beings (I’ve forgotten what they were called). The big battle between UNIT and the Bone Beasts was visually striking, for the few minutes it lasted. The way the UNIT building turned into a sort of high-tech pirate ship reminded me of the Terry Gilliam -Monty Python short The Crimson Assurance, which was shown in cinemas prior to The Meaning of Life. It was especially reminiscent when Kate Lethbridge-Stewart (Jemma Redgrave) was at the helm, twirling an old-fashioned battleship wheel. Unlike the Python film, I don’t think this was supposed to be funny. But it was.
  • Millie Jackson as Ruby has been by far the most consistent actor of the two seasons, when she’s been around, and here she was no exception. More on Ruby/Millie later.
  • This was Ncuti’s last appearance as the Doctor, and as somebody who has thought he was miscast from the off, and that he has never succeeded in portraying a believable Doctor for more than a few fleeting moments, it would make sense for me to see his departure as a positive in and of itself.
  • I do, but I will qualify that sentiment.  As bad as this episode was, he himself was OK, mostly, and there’s been enough of those ‘fleeting moments’ over the last year-and-a-half, to make me suspect that there is an alternative universe, where the show was run by somebody who told him to play down rather than to enhance the camp flamboyance he was known for in Netflix’ Sex Education, and who provided him with cohesive scripts and a consistent character arc, in which he might have made a good Doctor.
  • But we don’t live in that universe and that’s sad, for him and for fans of the show. Maybe one day he’ll have the opportunity to show he really can act, to build on the ‘Dark Doctor’ aspects of his characterisation by playing a villain in something decent and credible. Or perhaps he’ll turn up, older, wiser and better in a seventy-fifth anniversary multi-Doctor special.
  • His Involvement in this will have done his career no favours, unfortunately.  I feel sorry for him, though, if he decides or is advised to go with the ‘racist/homophobic fans’ narrative as an explanation for his failure, then my sympathy will rapidly evaporate. if he does feel the need to apportion blame, then I suggest he looks closely at how he was written, by whom, and for what reason.
  • There was one very clever and cool idea towards the end of the episode, when Poppy’s baby cover from her newly installed Tardis crib grew smaller and smaller as the Doctor and Belinda passed it back-and-forth between themselves, whilst simultaneously and slowly forgetting the little girl’s existence. It was a nice way of visually representing Poppy’s (temporary) erasure from reality. The best idea in the whole episode, maybe in the whole season.
  • I’ve liked Jonah Hauer-King’s portrayal                                                                                                                                               of Conrad Clark since his first appearance in the otherwise abysmal fourth episode, Lucky Day. He again did what he could with what he was given here. I’ll come to the bizarre character arc he was given shortly.
  • The same goes for Varada Sethru as Belinda. Enforced rewrites caused by behind-the-scenes problems we’re not fully privy to, made a big contribution to making this finale such a disaster. This adversely affected the characterisation of several characters, but none more so than Belinda. I’ll also get to that later. But purely from an acting perspective, Varanda has nothing to be ashamed of.
  • I’ve liked Archie Punjabi since I first became aware of her in Life On Mars two decades ago. She’s a fine actress with the ability to lift even the weakest material. But she wasn’t written as the Rani in any sense that those who were aware of that character’s existence from the classic era would recognise.  And almost as soon as she had presented her half-baked plan to resurrect the Time Lords in her own image, in a scene of laughably static exposition, she was eaten by Omega and gone, presumably forever. What a waste.
  • Ditto Anita Dobson’s Rani 2, whose only good moment was her ‘Two Rani’s’ joke before she disappeared, again, probably never to return. Two seasons’ worth of the ‘Who is Mrs. Flood’ saga, during which she did nothing even vaguely Rani-like, for that.
  • Steph de Whalley returned as Anita, the sole high point from December’s Joy to the World Christmas special. She was there primarily to resolve the last episode’s cliff-hanger by means of the Time Hotel, which we first encountered in that Moffatt-penned Christmas episode, and of which she is now the manager, a responsibility that provided her with a magic key that enables her to open a magic door anywhere in time and space. The Doctor thus saved, she spent most of the rest of the episode holding open doors, UNIT’s high-tech gadgetry not quite stretching to doorstops. She did at least show some nice comic timing in the few lines she was given.
  • Jodie Whittaker’s three-minute appearance alongside Ncuti in the Tardis made this a multi-Doctor story, though the worst multi-Doctor story ever. This was apparently a late addition, and it made no narrative sense. Yet, strangely, alongside Ncuti, she actually seemed like the Doctor, or at least ‘a’ Doctor. I almost felt nostalgic for an era I’ve hardly watched, though that didn’t run to whooping and cheering her appearance, unlike many in the cinema. Sometimes, I despair of the youth of today. They cheered when Billie appeared as well.
  • Early on in his tenure, Gatwa foolishly told fans who weren’t enjoying his version of the Doctor to stop watching, and to ‘go and touch grass’ instead. Shortly before his regeneration scene, we saw Ncuti crawling in a park, literally touching grass. It was another RTD fan-bait, but quite amusing and affectionate. It made me chuckle, anyway.
  • Murray Gold’s soundtrack was decent enough. He’s been disappointing since he returned alongside Davies, recycling much of his old material, and with the sound sometimes mixed so loud that it obscured the dialogue. But he did his best to lift this.

Negatives

Where does one begin?

After the cinema, I headed straight for the Grapes, my favourite Liverpool one-time Beatles haunt, secured myself a rare but necessary alcoholic drink (£6.50 for a pint of Guiness!), found a seat, got out my notebook like a proper critic, and made a list of story threads from the two seasons that were left unresolved. After that, I moved on to plot holes and miscellaneous offences against scriptwriting from this particular episode. It was a very long list, which I’ve since added to through my enjoyable trawl through online reviews, and through the second watch I delayed until strictly necessary. It’s a very long list, so what follows are merely potted highlights. One day, I will write them all out on separate cards, throw them in the air, and write my own script based on the random order in which I pick them up, in the style of a William Burrough’s cut-up experiment. It would probably be an improvement on RTD’s effort.

  • One criticism, among many, of last season’s finale, Empire of Death, was that not only was the reveal of Ruby’s mum as ‘just an ordinary woman’ a letdown, it was also never explained why she was wearing weird medieval style robes when she abandoned Ruby on the steps of the church, given that that she was supposed to be a teenage girl in living in London, 2005. I assumed that was something we’d come back to, but we never did.
  • The whole ‘Pantheon of Gods’ thing went nowhere, and we never discovered who The Boss was, even though this ‘boss’ was refenced in the episode.
  • And what became of the Toymaker’s ‘Legions’, who the dreadfully over-acted character Maestro (Jinx Monsoon) promised us, in The Devil’s Chord, would soon be ‘coming?’ Nothing, and I still don’t even know if they and the Pantheon are one and the same or completely separate entities.
  • Having said that these two seasons were to be an ideal ‘jumping on’ point for new fans, with no knowledge of anything that had gone before being necessary, as was the first season of RTD 1 back in 2005, Davies chose to climax last season with Sutekh, a character who appeared once in the classic series, in Pyramids of Mars in 1975. For the climax to this season, he went with Omega, who appeared twice, in The Three Doctors in 1973 and The Arc of Infinity (not The Ark in Space as I erroneously said in my Wish World review) in 1983, and the Rani, who appeared twice in the 1980’s. Viewers basically needed an MA in show-lore to follow any of this.
  • Omega was ‘re-imagined’ as a giant, generic, skeletal CGI monster, because he’d ‘become the thing everybody imagined him to have become’ according to the Doctor, and bore no relation to the classic Omega (who, if we insist on strict adherence to past continuity, had become a disembodied anti-matter being, anyway). At least last years’ Scooby Doo version of Sutekh was voiced by the same actor as the original, the legendary Gabriel Woolf.
  • Having appeared from behind the Seal of Rassilon, ‘Omega’ ate Archie Punjab’s Rani, and was then killed by the Doctor using his Vindicator thing. The whole ‘climatic’ battle lasted less five minutes.
  • The Vindicator, which had previously been used as a sort of tracking device to help get Belinda home, which, remember, was supposedly the focus of the season, now had the destructive power of a trillion supernovas, or something. I’m no expert, but wouldn’t something of that destructive power likely destroy whole galaxies, rather than one particular target in a closed environment?
  • Before their Pythonesque battle with the Bone Beasts, UNIT did a sort of Avengers’ Assemble pastiche, though I don’t think it was intended as pastiche, complete with Shirley (Ruth Madely) burning up the pavement Roadrunner style in her wheelchair and token legacy character Mel (Bonnie Langford) riding her motorbike into the control room at the top of UNIT tower, somehow, complaining that she’d been a ‘housewife’ in Conrad’s Wish World, as though such a thing is an almost unimaginable horror. This assembly of UNIT’s fearsome, battle-hardened force, was completed by the Doctor walking purposefully down the stairs, accompanied by Murray Gold giving it is all, and dramatically removing his jacket, looking like he really meant business. He ruined this effect somewhat by changing into a skirt. We’ve been assured by the powers-that-be that it was a kilt, but I’d like to see them try that one in the back streets of Glasgow.
  • Actually, I’ve nothing in principle against a man wearing a skirt. David Beckham managed to pull off the sarong look back in the day, and aesthetically, Ncuti looks good in most anything, I should imagine, if you like that sot of thing. If he’d gone with this skirt ensemble from the beginning of his tenure, and stuck with it, it might even have become iconic, though, personally I preferred the fifties Traditional Britain pinstripe suit and bowler hat he wore when still trapped in the world Conrad. That and the long brown leather jacket he wore in his first full episode, The Church on Ruby Road. As I’ve said before, the decision to deprive him of a single identifiable Doctor costume, which I gather wasn’t his decision, was a big mistake. 
  • ‘Dark Doctor’ went nowhere. What we are left with as the legacy of the Fifteenth is a Doctor who was mostly very upbeat, positive, camp and emotional (as in crying a lot), but also for no justifiable reason, occasionally took to torturing people (The Interstellar Song Contest), expressing delight at returning Al to the state of a ‘sperm and an egg’ (The Robot Revolution), travelling forward through time to watch Conrad die an early lonely death, and then back again to gloat about his impending fate to his face (Lucky Day). Coincidentally, these were all single, white, straight men, though he wasn’t very nice to Joy in Joy to the World or Anita in this episode either. His characterisation was a mess. Being easily ‘triggered’ through being the last of his people, doesn’t really cut it.  Apart from a brief period under the Moffatt regime, he’s been The Last of the Time Lords throughout most of the modern show. The Tenth Doctor’s Time Lord Victorious period was marked more by arrogance than cruelty and had an identifiable beginning and end. With this Doctor, the ‘dark turns’ were too random to make sense.  Put simply, there were too many times when he did things that Doctor Who fans never want to see the Doctor do.

– Belinda’s ‘development’ was also odd, especially in this, her likely final appearance. From strong, career driven independent nurse, who wanted nothing more than to get home and continue to help people, to final contentment as the mother of Poppy, which, apparently, she’d been all the time. We even got clips from previous episodes were references to ‘getting home for Poppy’ were inserted, and, more weirdly, even from episodes we hadn’t seen where the same point was reinforced.

 The conclusion that Belinda’s life was made complete by the addition of a baby, actually made a mockery of the ‘progressive’ politics and ‘Queer friendly’ direction of the entire two seasons. I’d be all for this, if it was artfully done, deliberately, and gradually. But you can’t obliterate a tone that has been established over almost twenty-one episodes by embarking on an abrupt recon’ of the entire backstory of a major character in the last twenty minutes and expect the reaction to be anything but confused derision.

  • Somebody could write a whole book on the bizarre characterisation and mixed, often contradictory motivations of Conrad. But, even now, it’s all way too much to get my head round. All I’ll say is that the ‘Wish World’ he created on behalf of the Rani, looked OK to me, with a few reservations, a sort of idealised version of a lost England, populated by happy, stable families (‘Traditional to the point of being wrong’, according to Davies in the relevant Unleashed episode). Even Ruby said so herself, and used the ‘Wish Baby’ to wish him to be happy, which is apparently how he ended up, happily working in a restaurant, with no memory of the previous self who’d had a podcast with a hundred thousand followers, and then gone on to be a rather benevolent dictator of a whole world. That doesn’t sound like a happy ending to me. He was emasculated, not redeemed.
  • Oh, and we discovered that UNIT implants microchips into the bodies of all of their employees, thus proving Conrad had a point in lucky Day concerning them being a malevolent force in the first place.
  • My own description of UNIT in modern Who would not be ‘malevolent.’  It would be ‘shit.’ From their ludicrous tower in the centre of London – an easy target for hostile forces from within and without Earth[GC1] , to their ‘leader’ Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, to their ridiculous DEI and nepotistic employment policies (To her credit, Anita became perhaps the only character ever to refuse a job offer from UNIT) and pointless characters like young Rose Noble (Yasmin Finney), who was introduced in the very first sixtieth anniversary special, simply because RTD decided a trans character was needed, and then given no character and no role.

I hate everything about the modern version of UNIT. How much better was the old UNIT family of the Brigadier, Yates and Benton? And let us not forget Torchwood either in RTD 1. Torchwood made sense and spawned four seasons of a spin-off that, at its best, especially the five-part, single narrative Children of Earth contained some of the darkest and best Who related stories ever, despite Chris Chibnall being the showrunner.

  • Ruby’s arc seemed to have concluded with her finding her ‘ordinary mum’ at the end of the Empire of Death. But she re-appeared in Lucky Day, and in this two-part finale she was suddenly the main companion again, before disappearing without even the opportunity of a final farewell to ‘her’ Doctor before his regeneration.  

As I’ve said, I like Millie Gibson as an actress, and Ruby was a character with promise, but why did she magically, by use of the Wish Baby, wish Conrad happiness, and then a few minutes later whine about the injustice of Conrad crossing over from ‘Wish World’ to the ‘real world’ but not Poppy? Strange.

  • What even was the ‘Wish Baby’? I liked the scene when the baby was taken by the Rani from his parents in nineteenth-century Bavaria in the previous episode, but can anyone take seriously a story which relies on a magic baby’ to further the plot? And why didn’t the Rani, as she’d now ceased to be the amoral scientific genius she’d once been (Pip and Jane Baker, the creators of the character, will be spinning in their graves. I hope their estate was paid handsomely for the rights to the use of their finest character) use this baby magic to further her plan to resurrect the Time Lords, instead of relying on an, as it proved, highly unreliable Omega?
  • And surely the Doctor could have found a better use of the magic baby than merely to stop it being used to make any more wishes come true?
  • Time Lords are now, apparently, sterile, which I suppose makes some sense of bi-generation as an evolutionary adaptation, which was referenced in the episode, but not really when the ‘Last of the Time Lords’ trope is factored in.  ‘They’re all dead, except for the Doctor and the Rani, and briefly, Omega and they can no longer procreate.’
  • The big one, for me, was Susan. I’ll say more about this below, but to have her appear briefly in The Interstellar Contest, for the first time in over forty years, even having her mouth the words ‘Grandfather…find me’, and then nothing since, was unforgivable.   
  • I’ve mentioned pacing problems in every review this season, but here they were writ large. In the cinema, I surreptitiously checked my phone when Omega was all too easily defeated. ‘Thirty-six minutes’, I thought. ‘What the Dickens are they going to do with the last half-hour, apart, probably, for Ncuti’s regeneration?’
  • The answer was the Poppy story. This was the Poppy we’d seen in Space Babies, then briefly at the end of The Interstellar Song Contest. Now she, apparently, became the key to the entire two seasons, this baby built on wishes and dreams, ‘like all babies’, according to the Doctor.
  • Probably, there’ll be numerous novels and whole Big Finish audio boxsets produced to explain and develop Poppy-Lore. All I can really glean from the episode was that the Doctor and Belinda thought she was their daughter, somehow, for a bit, then forgot all about her. Only Ruby remembered, for some reason, and she managed to convince the Doctor and everybody at UNIT that she had indeed existed. The Doctor then realised he could use his ‘regeneration energy’ to put everything back as it should be, i.e. back to a world where Belinda was and always had been Poppy’s mother. This was a world which had at no point been foreshadowed all season. And wasn’t the real Poppy still on the space station with little baby friends?
  • The breaking of the ‘fourth wall’ that began with Mrs Flood at the end of The Church On Ruby Road, and continued up until the point she revealed herself as the Rani, or rather two Rani’s after Archie Punjabi’s version emerged from within her in The Interstellar Song Contest, was never explained. It also seemed to have no plausible connection to the character of the Rani as we, the small minority who’d ever heard of her, had known her. This makes me suspect that the Rani connection to Mrs. Flood was something RTD decided on at late notice.

When the Doctor and Belinda took this fourth wall breaking to the extreme of emerging from 1950s Miami, in Lux, into a modern living room via a modern flat television screen to interact with a stereotypical but weirdly diverse trio of Doctor Who ‘fans’, I thought we were about to go somewhere interesting, if probably misguided with the whole Meta angle. But no, yet another road to nowhere.

  • In episode 6 of season 1, Rogue, the ‘Bridgerton’ episode, the Doctor met, lusted after, engaged in the most inappropriately sexual kiss in the show’s history with, and announced his undying love for the titular character. It seemed certain we’d be seeing Rogue (Jonathan Groff) again, though this wasn’t something I was exactly looking forward to. We did, briefly, via a video message, from within the ‘Hell Realm’ that existed in Conrad’s Wish World. One would have thought the Doctor might have tried to rescue this love of his life, especially when he got his hands on the magic Wish Baby. But no, his only comment concerned all cultures having a dark ‘Underverse’, such as the Upside Down (from Stranger Things, a decent enough modern Science Fiction show, not a culture), Narnia and Hell itself.  I’m not sure C.S. Lewis, who was not only a great writer of both Science Fiction and Fantasy, but also one of history’s most important Christian Apologists, would have been greatly pleased by this categorisation of Narnia, his greatest creation, with Hell. I’m not sure, either, how or why Zoom or Skype calls from Hell would be an option in Conrad’s world, though I did say that his dictatorship seemed quite benevolent by some of the standards of our own world.
  • Ncuti’s regeneration itself was OK, though him shouting ‘Joy to the World’ from the Tardis as it hovered in space, apparently visiting Joy who, it will be remembered, turned into a star at the end of the Christmas special of that name, was silly, and nor was I keen on the Christ on the Cross type pose he struck as the process properly kicked in. But, even leaving aside the silliness of ending with his transformation into Billie Piper, the way it was done was bad, with her face obviously superimposed onto Gatwa’s body.  
  • Far better would have been to end with an ‘open regeneration,’ where we saw the process begin, fade to black, and let the future, if there is to be one, take it from there.
  • Lastly, when Davies introduced the Bi-generation concept in The Giggle, leaving not one but two Doctors existing simultaneously in the same timeline, he unnecessarily created a situation where fans would inevitably question what Tennant’s Fourteenth was doing while Sutekh, the various members of the Pantheon, the Rani, Omega et al where posing an existential threat to the universe: still sitting sipping cocktails with Donna and her family in their back garden, with his fully functional Tardis standing dormant by the back gate, perhaps being repurposed as the ultimate ‘dimensionally non-linear’ general storage unit?   

Conclusion

 The first thirty-six minutes were passably bad. Had it continued like that for the remainder of the episode, perhaps stretching it out to make the ‘battle’ between the Doctor, the Rani and this faux-Omega the climatic scene, then, with or without a regeneration, it would likely be regarded on about the same level as Empire of Death, maybe even a little better. But, tacking on the Poppy story and retrospectively making that the focal point of two whole seasons was crazy.

Last-minute rewrites, forced upon writers for whatever reason, are always going to present problems, no matter how good the writer is. Milie quitting, or being fired, Ncuti quitting, or being fired, both clearly threw RTDs plans into disarray.

We also now know that some of the arcs he set up weren’t even intended to be resolved until season 3, or even 4. To write and record two seasons more or less in tandem, and still leave threads hanging, on the assumption that those first two seasons would be successful enough to ensure he would have the opportunity to resolve them at a later stage shows a lot of arrogance.

As I said in my last review, Belinda’s zig-zag characterisation only makes sense once you realise that much of her material was originally intended for Ruby.

We even now know, and have a still photograph as evidence, that an alternative ending to The Reality War was shot. It should have ended happily in a nightclub, with the Doctor and Belinda dancing (Varada looking super-hot, by the way), and Susan, dressed in an outfit reminiscent of the one she wore in The Five Doctors, taking Poppy by the hand, and saying ‘Let’s go mum…’

We even saw Carole Ann Ford wearing this outfit in her Unleashed interview. This suggests the alternative ending decision was made very late in the day.

 I know I’m not alone in feeling a sense of relief that we were spared the horror of Poppy as the Doctor’s daughter and Susan’s mum. Hopefully, that’s an idea that’s dead and buried now. But Carole Ann is now eighty-five-years-old, and it’s a shame she’ll now likely never get a proper, meaningful, valedictory appearance.

Forced late-stage changes notwithstanding, Davies could still have made other choices as regards the finale.

That he went with what he went with is perhaps an indication that there is nobody in a position of sufficient authority to say ‘no’ to him.

What is clear, is that RTD is now a pale shadow of the writer he used to be. This is the man who knocked out Midnight, one of the best episodes of the modern era, in a weekend because a planned script became unusable at the last minute.

He used to be good, and I have taken issue with certain podcasters who now, retrospectively, claim that there were always problems with Davies’ writing for Doctor Who.

Yes, some of the overt virtue-signalling that has been a big contributory factor to making this era as bad as it has been, was there from the beginning of the modern show. But, on the whole, the stories he wrote in his first era, were so good that this went unnoticed, or was quickly forgotten. Russell T Davies was a great Doctor Who writer/showrunner, and his book The Writer’s Tale, which I’ve recently dipped back into for the first time in years, he gives some great insights into his writing processes back then, of how much time, effort, and love he put into his scripts. It’s also an inspiration work for anyone who writes, or has aspirations to write, similar material themselves.

As critical as I’ve been in this series of reviews, I won’t forget that Russell T Davies was above all else, a fan who was inspired to write by his love of the show, turned out to be very, very good at it, seized the opportunity to bring the show he loved  back from the dead, and put his heart and soul into making its return the success it was.

It’s a shame his legacy has been tarnished, but judging him purely on the evidence of the last year and a half, is akin to judging the career of Muhammad Ali on the basis of his last two fights.

And, who knows, his forthcoming Channel Four series Tip Toe may prove to be good. Writing about his experiences within the LGBTQIA (apologies if I’ve missed anyone out) community is clearly where his real interest lies. That’s where he began, of course, with Queer as Folk, at a time when there were fewer letters of the Pride alphabet to remember.

But these are areas that should have, and should always be kept out of Doctor Who, and Davies time as the showrunner and main writer needs to end here.     

The Future?

I should end where the episode ended, with Billie Piper. Clearly, her appearance at the end of Ncuti’s regeneration scene was a last-minute add-on, a stunt, a gimmick. It’s probably significant that the end credits said simply ‘Introducing Billie Piper’ without the customary suffix ‘as the Doctor.’ Frankly, I’d be amazed to see a season of Doctor Who, with or without RTD, with Billy Piper as his Doctor. She might get a single special, written mainly as a means of explaining away this nonsense. Perhaps she’ll turn out to still be Rose, or the Moment, the personification of the super-weapon with which the Tenth, Eleventh and War Doctor brought an end to the Last Great Time War in The Day of the Doctor fiftieth anniversary special. Or, as I’ve already suggested, the whole thing could be quietly forgotten.

We all like Billi, but the future must lie elsewhere.

Here’s a few ideas, off the top of my head:

Davies must go. He can no longer produce single cohesive episodes, let alone develop and resolve complex multi-season story arcs. As well as his clear creative regression, it’s often seemed that he’s come to regard the show as, at least in part, primarily a vehicle for the promotion of his rather intolerant brand of ultra-left-liberal politics, lashing out at those who disagree with him, whether it’s about particular political issues, or the general direction of the show. He forgot that the fans are the lifeblood of Doctor Who, and he assumed that those who turned their back on its new itineration would be replaced by new, younger fans more in tune with his political and creative vision. That assumption was wrong, my experience at the cinema notwithstanding. BBC ratings have been poor, Disney have almost certainly seen enough and, finally, even his cheerleaders among establishment critics have deserted him.

The show was in a bad place when he returned to replace Chibnall in 2022, but it’s in an even worth place now. He’s left a mess, and he’s not the man to clean it. Nor do now long-ago past glories earn him the right to try.  

All that remains of his promised mighty, globe-spanning Whoniverse, is the bad smell of two series plus not very special ‘specials’ under his watch, and the still unseen The War Between the Land and the Sea, a UNIT spin-off that’s been in the can for at least a year that very few expect good things of.     

There must be no return to Moffatt, or Chibnall either, nor anyone closely associated with them or Davies, though, anybody should have the right to submit individual ideas or scripts for consideration.

I’d dispense with the idea of all-powerful ‘showrunners’ completely. What’s needed is a skilled script editor with a large and varied pool of writers, established and new, to draw from. As a starting point, there are a great many Doctor Who novels and Big Finish audio dramas that could make the transition into becoming excellent television episodes.

I’m open to a full reboot, even with the possibility of remaking classic stories, if this is done tastefully and respectfully. Alternatively, you can write away the last few years in a single special or simply a few lines early in a re-imagined show. Blame the Master or consign the last eight years to a parallel universe, anything that allows us to move forward, unbound by ever more layers of impenetrable lore.

Thought must be given to episode length and format. The idea of forty-five-minute standalone stories which link to longer arcs looks tired and outdated. A few longer specials every couple of years, on something like the Black Mirror model, or a return to shorter episodes that combine into standalone serials in the fashion of the Classic era ere both options worthy of careful consideration.

Writers need to write within some form of guide, a ‘show bible’, an official canon. Franchises like Star Wars and Star Trek have such a thing, and although it hasn’t saved them from Woke Hell in recent years, at least it prevents anyone from rewriting the whole backstory of the universe, and its key character on a whim, ala Chibnall and his Timeless Children.

The First Doctor was played by William Hartnell. He stole a Tardis in his home planet of Gallifrey for reasons which are, and never need to be, made clear, and went on his travels. His Tardis can theoretically take on any form, but its Chameleon Circuit is broken and it got stuck in the form of an old English police box in London in the early nineteen-sixties. That’s how our story begins, and always will begin, now and forever.

That should be the staring point for a show ‘bible’, a guide that allows for change and evolution, but maintains core essence and continuity.

No more DEI casting. I’d start a new era with an older, male actor with the gravitas of a Hartnell, Ecclestone or Capaldi. Off the top of my head, I’d go for Simon Pegg. He’s proved through the Mission Impossible series of films that he can do serious as well as comedy.  He’s also a fan and, at the time of writing, is the exact same age as Hartnell and Capaldi where when they were first cast.

 Paul McGann is now in the elder statesman category of Doctors, with a quarter of a century of experience of playing the role in Big Finish audio. It would be nice to see him finally get the series he got. Perhaps a six episode, thirty minutes per episode, single-story series to tide us over, and trial a new format?

I also recognise that the younger male Doctors, Tennant and Smith, brought to the role a certain ‘girl appeal’ that it had previously lacked and has lacked since, but that’s one of the beauties of the character, that, through the genius idea of regeneration, it can morph and change as the need arises.

But the casting needs to be on merit, not a tick-box exercise driven by ‘representation’ and ideology.

There is still an audience for Doctor Who, if it’s good. ‘Build it, and they will come,’ as someone once said.

 It doesn’t need a massive Disney-style budget to be good. For the $100M they apparently put into it, I don’t think the show looked any better than it had previously in the modern era. In some respects, it looked worse, with too much fake-looking CGI, and with sometimes the impression given of big money being spent simply for the sake of it. For all of its many faults, the Chibnall/Whittaker period was probably peak-Who, on a purely visual level, and that was funded by the BBC alone.

The key to rebirth is great Science Fiction (NOT Fantasy) storytelling, not hard cash, though it does make sense to reach out to an alternative high-level streaming service as a partner to the BBC, especially as the Zeitgeist now seems at last to be turning away from using entertainment as a form of ultra-liberal propagandising.

Doctor Who is a fabulous old show, a national institution that can still have a bright future.

All that’s needed is a decent rest and people of talent who care for it enough to make it, once again, relevant to new generations.

Anthony C Green, June 2025

After writing this, I discovered that in his monthly Doctor Who magazine column, Davies announced that his column was now being ‘put on hold’ until ‘we know what’s happening.’ Some are interpreting this as coded ‘Farewell.’ We’ll see

By Anthony C Green

Picture Credit: By Miguel Discart – 2019-03-03_12-08-44_ILCE-6500_DSC00368, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=123599604

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Review: Doctor Who Unleashed: 20 Years In Wales

June 10, 2025 at 12:26 pm · Filed under Doctor Who, TV Shows ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

1,383 words, 7 minutes read time.

Last year, Russell T Davis said that nothing was planned to mark the twentieth anniversary of the return of Doctor Who to our screens in March 2005. In the end, perhaps inspired by the possibility that that era is about to come to an end, maybe also to drum up a bit more interest in his desperate gamble of bringing back Billie Piper to the show, perhaps as the Doctor, perhaps not, he decided to throw together this hastily arranged extended version of the regular behind-the-scenes show Unleashed, three months after the anniversary has passed.

Exactly how hasty, can be gauged by the dating of the interview with Davies early in this special, 25th April, while the just-completed disaster of the confusingly named ‘Season 2’ was still airing. We also got an obviously tacked-on interview with Billie at the end, separate from the main interview she gave alongside David Tennant. In this second interview, without saying anything specific, it was clear that Billie knew she was about to return, though she was, and probably still is, about as much in the know about how, why and in what capacity as we, and Davies, are.

Logo of 'Doctor Who Unleashed' featuring the show's title in a colorful and futuristic style.

Eternally annoying Unleashed presenter Steffan Powell did refer to last week’s ‘shock’ regeneration, when Bilie’s head appeared superimposed on Ncuti Gatwa’s body, but, again, there was nothing specific said.

How could there be? The big Disney investment is almost certainly over, so it’s down to the BBC if they want to run with Davies’ latest half-baked idea, either with or without another streamer. There is almost certainly no script either. One rumour is that Steven Moffatt is hard at work on one, perhaps to air as early as Christmas this year. But, given the funding question, that seems unlikely.

For what it was, the documentary itself was OK. We got some nice location filming shots, particularly of Eccleston and Piper at work on the first season back in 2004. It was heavy on the whole Wales angle, as the title suggests, about how Doctor Who has put it on the map as far as TV and film production goes.

I particularly enjoyed the interviews with the owner of the real-world record shop where Blink, Moffatt’s masterpiece, was filmed, and the couple who are the custodians of the Lighthouse where one of the Jodie Whittaker episodes was filmed, Fugitive of the Judoon, I think. That was less of a masterpiece, but still a nice setting, and Wales has proven to be a great, scenic home for the show over the past two decades.

As far as major participants were concerned, we got the three showrunners, RTD, Moffatt and Chibnall who’ve now dominated the show throughout the modern show’s twenty-year existence. Of the era’s Doctors we have Gatwa, Whittaker and Tennant; and on the companions front we had Varada Sethru, (Belinda in the latest series), Karen Gillan (Amy) and her on screen husband and fellow Eleventh Doctor sidekick Arthur Darvill (Rory), both appearing via an iPad, Pearl Mackie who played Bill Potts in Capaldi’s last season, Mandip Gill who played Yaz as part of Jodie’s ‘Fam,’ and as I’ve indicated, more Billie Piper than originally planned, the first and possibly the last face to appear in Modern Who.

But more significant is who wasn’t there. Given his righteous ‘Sack Russell T Davis…’ diatribe of three years ago, Chris Eccleston’s non-appearance was a given. We know that Peter Capaldi had wanted, and deserved, a fourth season, but didn’t get it because Moffatt was leaving and his replacement, Chris Chibnall, had made the casting of a woman Doctor a precondition for taking the job. But he’s always remained positive about the show publicly, so I’m surprised he didn’t contribute a short, pre-recorded section. That he didn’t is perhaps an indication that his departure was more bitter than we know. Maybe he wasn’t even asked.

In fact, Capaldi’s three seasons got a mere two of the fifty-nine minutes here. Even more surprisingly, there wasn’t even a single mention of Jenna Coleman’s Clara, let alone an appearance from Jenna herself. This is bizarre, given that she was a two-Doctor companion, firstly in the later period of Matt Smith’s run as the Doctor, including in the iconic fiftieth anniversary Day of the Doctor special, the high-point of the modern show as far as public interest goes, as well as in Capaldi’s first two seasons.

The Eleventh Doctor himself, Matt Smith, who was the most popular Doctor globally, not Tennant, contrary to the official narrative, was also absent. Yes, he’s a big star nowadays. For him, Doctor Who was the launchpad to the sort of career Ncuti Gatwa almost certainly hoped for when his time in the Tardis was over, though that’s now unlikely. Matt cited the pressures of work for his non-appearance. But, if he’d wanted to, I’m sure he could have found five minutes to knock out something positive on his iPad or phone, as did his Co-star Gillan (for whom the show was also a stepping stone to greater things). It’d be interesting to know his reasons for not finding that time.

Another person who failed to appear was Millie Gibson, Ncuti’s companion in his first and for parts of his second season. I touch on the Millie saga more in my review of that second season finale, The Reality War.’ We don’t know, and perhaps never will know, the full story of her departure. But we do know that she was intended to be Gatwa’s companion for both seasons, and that she left early during filming, necessitating her replacement with Varada’s Belinda for most of what turned out to be Gatwa’s premature swansong season, and substantial rewrites, returning only for likely contractually obliged last-minute reshoots earlier this year.

The documentary was less than an hour long, and we could cite others who were absent, such as Freema Agyeman’s ‘Martha’, John Sims, the best of the modern Master’s, Michelle Gomez (‘Missy’), and Alex Kingston (‘River Song’).

John Barrowman, whose ‘Captain Jack’ was an important aspect of the show’s success early on, as well as that of the more adult spin-off Torchwood, has now become something of a persona non grata on British television because of some well-documented, though arguably, by the standards of the BBC rather harmless backstage sexual high-jinks, so it was never likely that he would appear.

So, given the limited time available, it’s perhaps a mistake to read too much into who wasn’t there.

But, the sheer number of significant figures who didn’t feature, including three of the six modern Doctors, four out of seven if we count Jo Martin’s Fugitive Doctor, make it hardly wild speculation to suggest that the production has not always been as full of fun and happy Welsh frolics as this ‘celebration’ suggested. 

Still, it’s enjoyable enough for what it is. And there is something rather poignant about seeing Eccleston at work early in the production of the first season of the modern era, with the knowledge that his decision to quit was made during that very first block of filming.

Anthony C Green, June 2025

PS In the day or so since this aired, the press is full of speculation that Tennant will return yet again, alongside Piper, for another ‘special’. Reading between the lines of this Unleashed, I suspect this is true, and perhaps it will be sooner than expected. It could make some sense if the BBC can find the money. As much as I dislike the idea of another Tennant return (and Tennant in general, to be honest), it could tie up a few loose ends, like undoing the ‘bigeneration’ mess, to explain Billie’s appearance at the end of The Reality War, and to bring to a final close the whole misguided Tenth Doctor/Rose romantic thread. But it should only happen as a means of drawing a final line under this era, leaving the road clear for a new Doctor under a new production team at some point in the future. If it’s merely an exercise designed for the BBC to keep the show on the road at any cost, with RTD still in post, and with plans for a series featuring Piper as the Doctor to follow, it will be a counter-productive waste of time.

Available on the BBC iPlayer

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Doctor Who Season 1 Episode 7 Review: Wish World Insights

May 29, 2025 at 10:41 am · Filed under Doctor Who, TV Shows ·Tagged , ,

 2,084 words, 11 minutes read time.

Overview

The job of a penultimate episode in a season is to recap where we are so far, and to put the finishing touches to the finale set-up. It’s difficult to judge the quality of such episodes in isolation apart from what follows. Season 1, episode 7 last year, The Legend of Ruby Sunday did its job well, and, for me, was probably the best of the whole season. But it now has zero watchability, because the finale itself, The Empire of Death was unmitigated disaster that resolved nothing.

As this season has progressed, it’s become clear that it should really be viewed as being of a piece with the season that proceeded it. That being the case, next week’s episode has even more riding on it. As the culmination of not one but two whole seasons, sixteen episodes in total, and twenty-one if you include the three sixtieth anniversary and two Christmas specials, as logically we must.

That put a huge amount of importance on Wish World. That being the case, the one thing RTD shouldn’t have done was to throw yet more elements into the mix, elements that have not been adequately foreshadowed in the year-and-on-half that has gone before.

Sadly, that’s exactly what he chose to do, leaving the narrative even more convoluted than it was already. The Legend of Ruby Sunday, despite a very disappointing season to that point, left me hopeful that the various strands we’d been introduced to would be satisfactorily resolved. All Wish World left me was feelings of confusion, exasperation, annoyance and the expectation that those feelings would still be present and correct in a week’s time.

Positives

Yes, there were some. I’m enjoying Archie Punjabi’s acting, although I’m not sure how much her character has to do with the Rani as we knew her from the Classic era. It would have made more sense had she been playing Missy/The Master and having her point out the distinction between her being a Time Lady rather than a Time Lord makes no sense since the concept of gender shifting Time People was introduced. She does look great, and I enjoyed the sight of her riding her space-motor scooter thing immensely, even though I’d much sooner have seen her in her cool 1980s Tardis with the miniature dinosaurs and other creatures in jars. But she is good. Whereas Ncuti Gatwa looks woefully out of place when faced with flashbacks of previous Doctors, Archie stood up remarkably well during a welcome reprise of the original Rani, the late, great Kate O’Mara. Without doing an imitation, she is recognisably the same character.

The whole episode looked the part, with Conrad’s 1950’s conservative-utopia well realised in terms of clothing and setting, with the Bone Palace in particular, looking spectacular, like a Salvador Dali painting brought to life.

The giant dinosaur skeleton things seen overhead were an impressive use of CGI, though I’ve no idea what the point of them was.

Negatives

Where do you start?

There’s nothing wrong with the idea of entering an alternative reality (Conrad’s Wish World, though it was presumably created under the direction of the Rani?) where the Doctor isn’t the Doctor, but ‘John Smith’ (a name the Doctor has made use of many times when working undercover, whether knowingly or not), who is happily married to Belinda, with a baby, namely Poppy from Space Babies. Done well, this could have given Gatwa an opportunity to add a new acting chop to his arsenal, to go with his flamboyant gay and his angry, vindictive ‘Dark Doctor.’ Unfortunately, he came across as a gay man pretending to be straight. There is no comparison between Ncuti’s John Smith and that of Tennant in the all-time-classic Human Nature. In that case, I really believed that Tennant was playing a different character. Ncuti Gatwa is always Ncuti Gatwa, whatever name he is given.

This Wish World appears to being read into existence by Conrad, the English podcaster who we first met in Lucky Day, from a book called Doctor Who and the Deadly Wish. The design style and colouring of this hardback book looked suspiciously like Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. This can’t be for any other reason than for RTD to have a dig at J.K. Rowling for having differing opinions to him when it comes to trans-related issues. The title is, now I think of it, also likely meant to invoke Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. This is the level of pettiness we’ve now reached. Trolling fans like me who don’t like the current direction of the show is no longer enough. Davies is now also using his scrips as a means of doing battle with ideological opponents, though arguably, the last two seasons have all been about that.

Conrad also refers constantly to ‘Doctor Who’, which is surely another fan-dig, this time aimed at people like me who enjoy pointing out to normies that the show is called ‘Doctor Who,’ but the character is always simply ‘The Doctor.’

The book is allegedly written by one I.M. Foreman. This was the name above the junkyard where it all began in An Unearthly Child back in 1963, from where Susan took her second name. It takes more than Ester Eggs like this to keep us happy, Mr. Davies.

Much of what follows will likely be disjointed and chronologically incorrect, because, despite two watch throughs’, that’s how I remember it, to the extent that I remember the episode at all.

Another god is entered into the fray in the form of a baby (not Poppy, a white baby), the god of storytelling, the seventh son of a seventh son, taken from a strangely unconcerned couple in a nice-looking nineteenth century Bavaria by an even nicer looking Archie on horseback right at the start. Whether or not seventh sons of seventh sons are reputed to become gods of storytelling, or of anything else, in Bavarian folklore from this period, I’ve no idea; and how this god fits in with RTD’s Pantheon, or the now actually existing Greek god Dionysus or Nigerian spider-god Anansi who we met in the barbershop episode, I also have no clue. I suspect neither does Davies. As I’ve probably said before, Tolkien he is not.

Conrad’s evil Tradtopia is a world where men are still dominant over women, and men have the ‘doubt police’ called on them for complimenting another man on his looks. But wouldn’t the idea work better if it was set in the present day, rather than in the 1950s, where we (perhaps unfairly) expect that sort of thing anyway? And the world seems nowhere nearly as bad as it would need to be for RTD to effectively make his ultra-progressive point.

Even in the ‘refugee camp’, where we get much talk between Ruby (who sort of swanned around in the episode, remembering more about the ‘real’ world than most, for reasons that are unclear), Jenny scientific advisor from UNIT, which has now been re-imagined as an insurance corporation, and some other disabled people about the likes of them being ‘invisible’ to the average person, they had nice clean tents and nice clean clothes. This was explained as parts of the ‘real’, i.e. ‘good’ world, ‘bleeding through’ to their reality, but this just seemed like a loss of nerve by Davies, as though he was afraid to show any real hardship. We even had an iPad (complete with tripod) bizarrely and pointlessly ‘bleeding through.’

We also had a random Drag Queen in the camp. Because they’re repressed and ‘invisible’ too, just like the disabled, though at ‘she’ was also clean and well-fed, a little too well-fed.

Surprisingly, there was no racism in Conrad’s utopia. I suppose that would have been too difficult to pull off, even for RTD, given such a white-lite cast.

There was lots of stuff about ‘doubt’ and every-time anybody did doubt or question the reality they were in, yellow cups fell through solid tables and broke on the floor. Nothing else, just that, and the phone calls to the ‘Doubt’ police.

At one point, when she realised that she couldn’t remember giving birth to Poppy, Belinda ran out into a large field, which was conveniently placed in the middle of a residential area, to scream loudly. Her mum also lacked any memory of the birth of her grandchild. This was the first time we’d seen this character. She was indistinguishable in character from Ruby’s mum, or one of them.

This continued until Rogue, the Doctors lover from the titular episode Rogue appeared by video-link from what was described as the Hell-realm, where he’d presumably been cast down for being gay, and chose to make use of his fortunate access to digital forms of long-distant communications to tell the Doctor that ‘Tables don’t do that.’

We had a flashback to past Doctor’s for the second episode in a row. This served a dual function this time, not only reminding the viewers that Ncuti Gatwa is also supposed to be the Doctor but also causing ‘John Smith’ to remember this himself.

The Doctor’s recognition that he was now face to face with the Rani, an old and feared adversary, should have been a big moment, but wasn’t and lead nowhere, other than a vague suggestion that they might once have been lovers, and a dance under a disco-mirror-ball she manifested from the ceiling. They did look a handsome stylish couple in their fine clothes, though the fragrant Rani had clearly picked the wrong incarnation of the Doctor if she has any residual romantic aspirations towards him. Jodie’s Thirteenth would likely have been a better bet.

What else? Mrs Flood/Rani 2 pottered around a bit, save for one nice moment when she and Rani 1 spoke creepily in unison. Mel also turned up for a few seconds, and, after her underwhelming return last week, Susan got another second or two inside the Doctor’s head. Let’s hope for more next week.

It was then that RTD decided he hadn’t woven enough threads into the last two seasons, nor had yet enough Big Returns. So, we get the Rani pointing out the ‘Seal of Rassilon’ before announcing next week’s classic era comeback, that of Omega, the Time Lord who introduced his people to Time Travel. It’s not clear how this fits in with the Timeless Children saga.

There’s a lot of homework ahead if next week’s finale is to be enjoyed to the fullest possible extent. The Three Doctors and The Ark in Space from 1973 and 1975 respectively are the key texts for getting up to speed with Omega. But best also to delve into The Five Doctors from 1983 to be on the safe side, lest Rassilon be lurking at the ready behind his seal. This could also prove handy if there is to be more Susan-lore, in which case we might also need to seek out the 1993 Dimensions in Time Children in Need crossover with Eastenders, which in any case has now been made canon through reference to events that took place involving the Rani and Pat Butcher in that short. Then, there’s the whole Gallifrey Big Finish audio boxset…

It’s going to be a busy week.                                      

Conclusion

Somebody needs to tell RTD that having a character say, ‘This isn’t just exposition’, as the Rani did when outlining her unfathomable ‘plan’, doesn’t stop it being exposition. It merely draws attention to the fact that it is exposition.

And, if you end an episode on a cliffhanger, like the Tardis exploding at the end of The Interstellar Song Contest, it’s polite to return to and resolve this at the start of the next episode (call me an old traditionalist), but here, nothing, not a reference. The cliffhanger at the end here was the Doctor’s realisation, as he was poised to crash to his death from a collapsing beam, that Poppy really is his and Belinda’s child. Does this mean she’s Susan’s mum, or somebody else, or will this simply never be mentioned again?

Wish World was tosh. Pretty tosh, but tosh, over-complicated tosh, nevertheless. I’ll be at the cinema next week where I’ll have to sit through it again, followed by the sixty-five-minute Big Finale, The Reality War, where without a doubt, all questions will be answered.

More realistically, there’s a possibility we might see the end of Ncuti Gatwa, and perhaps even that Holy Grail for Whovians, a regeneration into a Doctor as yet unknown.

Anthony C Green, May 2025

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Doctor Who: Analyzing the Interstellar Song Contest Episode

May 23, 2025 at 7:51 am · Filed under Doctor Who, TV Shows ·Tagged , , , , ,

Season 2, episode 6 reviewed

Overview

2,492 words, 13 minutes read time.

Not being a fan of Eurovision, and most definitely not a fan of episode writer Juno Dawson, this was the episode I was looking forward to the least this season. But I was pleasantly surprised. Yes, like everything so far in Russell T Davies’ second period as showrunner, fourteen episodes and five specials to date, the plot falls apart the more you think about it. But at least there was a plot, and we were back in Science Fiction country, with proper aliens, space, space stations and explosions. This made a refreshing change after too many diversions into RTD’s Pantheon of Gods-Fantasy world.

It wasn’t without the inevitable left-liberal posturing, but on the whole, I thought that Dawson approached this as a Doctor Who fan and writer, rather than as a political activist. It also had one fan-pleasing moment that lifted the episode above the ordinary.

The episode left me looking forward to the two-episode finale.

Positives

This was described beforehand as the ‘most expensive episode ever’ and for once, we could see where the Disney money had been spent. The episode was visually stunning in places. The ariel shots of the Harmony Arena looked great, as did the sight of the hundred thousand strong audience at the song contest being sucked into space. Especially impressive, was the Doctor floating through the black void outside the stadium, his face slowly freezing. It was also good to see some proper aliens, aliens who looked like Science Fiction aliens, in the crowd and on the stage, although, this has to be qualified by some disappointment that there wasn’t more of this and that the main characters, and the main villain, drawn from the Hellion race, were of the usual humanoid form, albeit humanoids with horns.

When it was announced beforehand that the episode would feature four especially written songs, written by regular show composer Murray Gold, there was the worry that this would be a full-on musical episode, packed with tunes of the dubious quality of There’s Always a Twist at the End from The Devils Chord. As it happens, the use of music was nicely restrained, with three of the songs highly truncated in nature, including the amusing Dugga-Doo, and the final original song, sung by the Black Hellion character in her own language was good, even if it didn’t quite raise the musical stakes to the heights that were clearly intended. Even the use of Bucks Fizz’ Making Your Mind Up fitted, even if it did account for a sizeable proportion of the large budget.

As for the plot. It was thin, and simple, but at least it made sense in terms of character motivation. Essentially, it was two Hellion terrorists attempting to destroy the people in the stadium, and three trillion viewers watching the song contest at home, in protest at the Poppy Honey Company, the not very originally named ‘Corporation’ sponsorship of the event. This company had ravaged the Hellion planet to the point of desolation, by harvesting its honey poppies to extinction, for the sake of producing ‘honey flavouring’ for vast profit.

For once, the story allowed for a degree of ambiguity. On the one hand, we are invited to feel sympathy for the plight of the Hellion people, whilst weighing this against the response of the terrorists. I doubt that many would see the destruction of three trillion people (or, more accurately, sentient beings) as a proportionate response to aggressive economic colonisation, but at least we were given reasons as to why the antagonists acted as they did, which is better than the usual ‘Because straight white men are bad’ which has been the standard of late. Yes, once again, the main villain was indeed a straight white man, as I will come back to, but at least he was given some believable motivation.

The use of poppies as the source of the Corporation’s profit, suggested to me a link to Afghanistan, though some have made the connection with the ongoing situation in Gaza. If so, the subject was dealt with in a rather shallow fashion, with the suggestion that an emotional song could make everything OK, even though the power of the Corporation was never really addressed or challenged. This aspect of the story put me in mind of the weak Amazon satire Kerblam! From the Chibnall/Whittaker era.

The episode will be best remembered for those two big fan-pleasing moments. I discus the Mrs. Flood reveal and the return of the Rani below. But, the big one for me was the return of Susan Foreman.

Susan, played by Carole Ann-Ford, is the Doctor’s granddaughter and a genuine Doctor Who legend. She was one of the original Tardis team alongside William Hartnell’s First Doctor. More importantly, she is the only member of the Doctor’s family ever identified. Susan left the show in 1964, accompanied by Hartnell’s iconic ‘You go forward in all your beliefs, and prove to me that I have not been mistaken in mine’ speech as he left her with new love David Campbell in the ravages of a twenty second Century Earth ravaged by Dalek invasion. She returned only once, in the Five Doctor’s 20th anniversary special in 1983.

I’ve been hoping for a Susan story since the show returned in 2005, and been invested enough to check out the way the character has been fleshed out and developed in some of the novels, and in the Big Finish audios, where Carole Ann has now been reprising the Susan away from the cameras for more than twenty years.

We’d had lots of false trails through the years, mentions from both the Tenth and the Eleventh, and Peter Capaldi’s Twelfth even had a photograph of her in the Tardis. Then, last season seemed to be building towards her return, only for the whole ‘Susan’ theme to be wasted on the useless ‘Susan Twist’ character/actress. My worry was that RTD would go with a regenerated Susan without the involvement of the original actress. That would have been wrong, as I mentioned in a previous review.

But here, we got the real deal, the real Susan. It was only a few seconds, and she may or may not have existed only in the Doctor’s mind, but it was still genuinely emotional to see Carole Ann back on the screen in Doctor Who, and her mouthing of the words ‘Find me’ suggested more to come in the finale. I hope so.

For once, even the Doctor’s excessive campness didn’t seem out of place, given the uber-gay faux-Eurovision setting, and Gatwa gave a solid performance, though I will discuss the ‘Dark Doctor’ torture scene below. Freddie Fox was excellent as Kid, and the side characters were more engaging than normal, with good performances from Charlie Condou and Kadiff Kirwan as the gay couple Gary and Mike, Iona Anderson as Kid’s reluctant sidekick Wynn, and Miriam Teak-Lee as Cora. It was nice to see more characters with a crucial role in the story, and even the Special Guest Star appearances of Rylan and Graham Norton worked in the context of the episode. Varada Sethru had some nice Belinda moments, even if I found it hard to believe that the thirty-year-old British-Indian nurse would be as bigger Eurovision fan as she appeared to be.

The episode ended with the doors blowing off the Tardis, which left us on a good old-fashioned cliffhanger in the style of the classic era.

One more important positive: Ncuti didn’t cry!

Negatives

I’ve spent so much time on Susan in the previous section, that it feels right to return to it here. Her return was a big moment, but I can’t help feeling that, after so long away, the reappearance of the Doctor’s granddaughter should have been even bigger. Making Susan share her re-appearance with another returning , the Rani, diluted the impact somewhat, and I think this was a little unfair on Carole Ann Ford.

As for the Rani herself, the return of this character had been so heavily trailed that the element of surprise was lost. Personally, I’m somewhat indifferent to the character anyway, and have never quite understood the fascination with her in some sections of fandom. After all, she has only previously appeared in two 1980s stories, The Mark of the Rani and The Time of The Rani, though I did quite enjoy rewatching these two stories again to get me up to speed. That’s not to say she couldn’t be good if used correctly. Her main attribute in the days when she was played by the excellent Kate O’Mara, was as an amoral but brilliant scientist, and I’m hoping to see her scientific knowledge and expertise put to good use eliminating the Pantheon of Gods, the ‘Mavity’ conceit, and all other fantastical elements from the universe, returning it to something that can be rationally understood by the application of the Doctor’s pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo.

I could have done without RTD (and Dawson) doubling-down on the bi-generation idea introduced in The Giggle. Especially as the concept was put to even more nefarious use here, with the added new lore that the old incarnation, Anita Dobson’s Mrs Flood as was, is subservient to the new, played by Archie Panjabi (which is excellent casting), ‘A’ Rani as opposed to ‘The’ Rani.

I can’t help but wonder who the show is for now. I loved seeing Susan back, and some will have equally strong emotions about the Rani’s. But assuming there are still casual viewers out there, how many of them would know who either of these characters are?

The tropes of the modern show are becoming as tiresome as those of bad 1970s comedy and drama. As soon as I heard that the episode would feature a couple going through marital difficulties, I knew that this wouldn’t be the standard heterosexual couple, because such things now barely exist on our screens, and sure enough, here was Mike and Gary, one was black, one white, thus ticking another diversity box. In addition, we had another disabled character, which is obviously not wrong in itself, but I can’t shake the feeling that the production team approaches casting with a chart on the wall chart, ensuring that ‘Everybody gets to see themself represented on screen.’

Clearly the show has a big problem with white heterosexual males. The give away that Kid was to be the villain of the piece wasn’t that he had Satanic horns on his head, but that he kissed a hot girl (Wynn). The horror.

This is three episodes out of six where the baddie fitted this profile, and as the villains in the others were gods from RTDs Pantheon (Lux and The Story and the Engine), and an unseen alien entity (The Well), that’s a high percentage.

What makes this more troubling is the way the Doctor has treated these characters. Al the Incel (which he wasn’t, anyway) in The Robot Revolution was returned to the state of a sperm and an egg by the little laundromat gadget, which the Doctor, and Belinda, found hilariously funny. In Luck Day, the Doctor travelled forwards in time to watch English podcaster Conrad die sad and alone aged forty-nine, and then nipped back to the present day to gloat about it to his face. Here, the Doctor full on tortured Kid for a good minute with an electronic taser type instrument.

It’s nice to see myself represented on screen, or it would be if the Doctor didn’t seem to hate me so much.

It’s this torture scene that has caused most controversy. For myself, leaving aside the writer’s intent as to the targets of the Doctor’s venom, we’ve seen enough of this ‘dark turn’ to know that it must be deliberate, must play a part in the finale, and should ultimately have resolution.

At the moment, the only explanation for this behaviour is through the reiteration of ‘The Last of the Time Lords’ theme, which we’ve already seen with Eccleston’s Ninth and, notably, with Tennant’s Tenth’ ‘Timelord Victorious’ story arc back in RTD 1. If that’s all there is to it, then it’s simply RTD revisiting past glories. Plus, there have been so many resets over the years, as with the human races’ knowledge or lack of regarding the existence of aliens, that it’s no longer clear where we stand with the Doctor, Gallifrey and his own people. The return of the Rani and Susan should make it clear to the Doctor that he is not the Last Timelord, but it remains to see how this thread will play out in the next two episodes.

 The resolution of the plot depended on too many contrivances, in particular on Mike and Gary being in place at exactly the right time, and with just the skills needed to assist the Doctor in foiling Kid’s act of violent retribution.

Another problem is that, once again, nobody died. Too many miraculous resurrections destroy any sense of jeopardy, and that’s a petty in this case, where the initial sucking of the song contest audience into space was genuinely thrilling.

It was also rather silly that we were expected to believe that Gary processed one hundred thousand people, one by one, through his cryogenic chamber. That would take a long time, and it was also too much of a coincidence that Mrs Flood happened to be the very last one.

The Doctor has been described as a Superhero without superpowers.’ That is as he should be, but in the absense of such powers, there’s no real explanation as to how the Doctor was able to save himself from a certain frozen death in space, other than by a sheer act of will, which is far from satisfying.

There were also the usual pacing issues. The whole plot was essentially wrapped up within thirty-five minutes. This wasn’t such a glaring issue here, where the story was more cohesive and less convoluted than most. But it’s become a tired formula now that, after the twenty-fifth minute or so, Murray’s music will swell into bombastic mode, the Doctor will dash around shouting, laughing, and manically pressing buttons, and that, a few minutes later will be that.

Conclusion  

For once, the positives outweighed the negatives. I thought it was a solid episode that was recognisably Doctor Who. I enjoyed it and, especially the brief appearances of Carole Ann Ford. As I said in my introduction, it left me feeling hopeful for the finale.

It remains to be seen if RTD can land it. There’s certainly a lot to fit in: The Two Rani’s, Susan, Conrad the podcaster, the exploding Tardis, two season’s worth of fourth wall breaks, Mel, a tie in to the coming UNIT spin-off, Captain Poppy and the Space Babies, Dark Doctor, the Earth being destroyed on May 24th. That’s the date of the next episode, Wish World… 

Anthony C Green, May 2025

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Exploring Themes in Doctor Who: The Story and The Engine

May 19, 2025 at 3:01 pm · Filed under Doctor Who, TV Shows ·Tagged , , , , ,

Doctor Who: The Story and the Engine

Season 2, episode 5 reviewed

Overview

The episode was written by Inua Ellams, a Nigerian poet and playwright, after he was recommended to showrunner Russell T Davies by Ncuti Gatwa. Davies rejected Ellams’ first idea and suggested he instead base the episode around his Barbershop Chronicles play. This had been developed by the writer as a celebration of Nigerian barbershop culture, and had been based on real conversations Ellams had taped in barbershops. Davies had seen this play and liked it.

Promotional poster for Doctor Who featuring a male and female character standing on a colorful alien landscape with the Doctor Who logo.

Aside from one white woman who appeared very briefly, the story featured an all ‘people of colour’ cast, and has been described by RTD as a companion episode to episode 6 of the last season, Dot and Bubble, which, aside from Ncuti, featured an all-white cast.

‘Nigerian barbershop culture’ doesn’t immediately sound like a great premise for a Doctor Who story, but if you locate the barbershop simultaneously in Lagos, capital of Nigeria, and mounted on top of a giant spider travelling through the ‘Nexus’, have it powered by the stories of customers, and you throw in a few gods, both Nigerian and non-Nigerian, then I suppose it can be. At least, it can fit into Doctor Who in its present Science Fiction-lite, Fantasy-heavy incarnation.

It didn’t offend me politically on the scale of Lucky Day, though I do have political issues with it, as we shall see. If I were to sum up the episode in a few words, then ‘tedious,’ ‘pointless,’ ‘convoluted,’ ‘tell not ‘show,’ and ‘irrelevant’ to the main season arcs would be high on the list of words featured.

Positives

I don’t hate the idea of a story derived from oral storytelling traditions, of Africa or anywhere else, and this did have a recognisably different voice as far as script and performance go. This was a mildly refreshing, if somewhat stagy, change after the last two episodes. The Well had been co-written by Sharma Angel-Walfall. Lucky Day was ostensibly by Peter McTighe. But, in both cases, Davies was unmistakably present in both, almost as much as if he’d written them both alone. Here, the dialogue had a very different feel in places, and that made for a refreshing, if somewhat stagy, change.

It was again a reasonable performance by Gatwa, and the main supporting cast did well, with credit particularly due to Sule Rimi as Omo and Ariyon Bakare as The Barber.

Visually, it had some nice features. The Nigerian market looked authentic, before we settled down into another single location ‘bottle’ story within the barbershop. The giant spider looked good on the two occasions we saw it, especially the aerial shot of the barbershop mounted on top of it. I also liked the painterly-style animations that accompanied some of the stories, and the beating heart inside the brain, as well as the screaming head that appeared briefly, and rather mysteriously, beside it towards the end.

Negatives

Politically, there’s nothing wrong in itself with the idea of an almost totally non-white cast, but for a show that is so keen to combat homophobia to have an episode set in Nigeria with no indication at all of the difficulties gay people can find in that country seems hypocritical. In a scene with Belinda in the Tardis, we hear the Doctor declare that now he has found himself in a black body for the ‘first time’ (see below), there are places on Earth where he no longer feels welcome. Ncuti is a very camp, gay man who, wrongly, in my opinion, plays the Doctor in a way that closely reflects this. I wonder how welcome he would really feel in Nigeria, a country where overt displays of homosexuality can bring a sentence of fourteen years in prison, as well, almost certainly, oppression from within their own community. As a gay man himself, RTD will be well aware of this, as will the writer. It is perhaps not simply down to cost as to why the episode was filmed entirely in London, not Lagos.

On the issue of race, I very much regret how much attention is being given to the current skin colour of the Doctor. The character, remember, is a Time Lord, perhaps thousands of years old, who has travelled through the furthest reaches of the universe, at all points throughout its history. He’s fought aliens such as the Daleks, the Cyberman, and many others who are bent on the elimination of all difference between species. He’s a lone wolf well accustomed to being an outsider. To have him so focussed on his current form and to be so pre-occupied with how that form is received in certain parts of twenty first century Earth, diminishes the character, and is part of the wider problem mentioned in previous reviews, that of the Doctor now being written and played as if he was a mere human, specifically a black, gay, male human.

I’ll add that Ncuti Gatwa’s parents are from Rwanda and left that country because one tribe of black Rwandans was determined to genocide their tribe of black Rwandans. He grew up in Britain, has succeeded in becoming rich and famous, and is now in the fortunate position of being the lead actor in an iconic British show. I have no doubt he’s faced racism and homophobia in his life, but is he really a victim or a success story? Would he have done better to have remained in Africa, where he feels so ‘at home’ or in the ‘racist’ West?

Moving on to the episode itself, the only note I made during my second watch was ‘Full of stories we haven’t seen, featuring characters we don’t know.’ These stories were made all the weaker by the fact that they were largely told to us in pure exposition, without even the animations as illustration for the most part.

The worst of these stories featured a character called Abby who, if I’ve got this right, had been a friend, or a companion of the Fugitive Doctor (see below), who’d somehow lost her hand in marriage through in an il-judged bet by the Doctor, Ncuti’s Doctor or the Fugitive Doctor. As we’d never seen or heard of the girl before, it’s difficult to know why we should care.

As viewers, we were expected to take a lot on trust. For a start, we were expected to believe that the Doctor, at least since he manifested as a black man, and maybe previously as a black woman, or in general, had spent a lot of time hanging out in this Lagos barber shop, was known and loved by all, and was expecially close friends with Omo, thus setting up a later ‘I’ve been betrayed’ bout of Gatwa overacting. As I struggled to recall any mentions of Nigeria, Lagos, barber shops or Omo through the sixty-two-year history of the show, this was too much of an ask for me.

One of the main problems with the episode was that it took us even further down the road of Fantasy, this time inserting a mixture of African and Western pagan gods into the plot. I learnt that the Nigerian god of stories was called Anansi, and took the form of a woman’s face on a spider’s body, so that explained, sort of, the giant spider that was transporting the barbershop through the Nexus. But where did Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and dancing and theatre and stuff come into it? Did the Doctor’s comment that he’d got drunk with this god mean that the deities of the Greek Mythos now have temporal existence ‘in-universe’? What about the Roman Pantheon, or the Egyptian, or the Norse? And how do these fit with RTD’s own beloved Pantheon, with Lux and Maestro, with the Toymaker and his ‘legions’?

I’ve no idea, and I very much doubt I ever shall.

Aside from the choice of setting and the casting being one big virtue signal, there was inevitably yet more. 

For instance:

The Barber revealed that his original name for the Nexus had been The World Wide Web. It soon became clear that the only reason this was inserted was so that the Doctor could call him a ‘Troll on the World-Wide-Web,’ revisiting one of the central themes of Lucky Day.

This has been a problem throughout the series. The writing serves the message rather than the story. Another example was the story that the Doctor told once he took his turn in the hair-cut chair. He had thousands of years’ worth of stories to choose from. Would he decide to power the engine with a tale of one of the numerous occasions he has saved the Earth from alien invasion, or of his many battles with the Master? Perhaps he might plumb for one of his historical journeys and his meetings with iconic figures from the history of our planet, with Marco Polo maybe, or Shakespeare or Hitler?

No, instead told a simple story of one of Belinda’s heroic endeavours saving our NHS from collapse, this one about how she saved the life of the token white character by correctly diagnosing her, overruling the Southeast Asian doctor in the process. Usually, bumbling fools in need of rescue by a Strong Woman of Colour are reserved for straight white males, but we all know now that the people we used to call ‘Orientals’ are ‘White Adjacent’ and thus part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

For some reason, this story was revealed through a proper short film, rather than mere words or painterly animation. Whatever, it had no reason to be here other than to stress how hard our nurses, especially our Indian nurses, work.

The resolution of the thin plot was unsatisfactory and derivative. How many times has the bad guy been vanquished through the sheer awesomeness of the Doctor and his history? Quite a few, though it was the climax of the Eleventh Doctor story The Rings of Akhaten that sprang immediately to my mind.

The point was that the Doctor had so many stories that the Engine overheated and was destroyed. This was illustrated by the overused projection of the images of some of the iconic Doctor’s past.

Perhaps this was used simply to remind us Ncuti was the Doctor. As is the norm for this season, the Doctor’s clothes gave no clue, blending seamlessly as they did into the pseudo-Nigerian environment. If one had joined the episode once the opening scene in the Tardis was complete, with no prior knowledge of the era, there would have been little to identify this show with the show we had once known or, until they appeared to remind us, the fantastic actors who’d once inhabited the character.

As far as I noticed, we didn’t get Colin Baker’s Sixth or Sylvester McCoy’s Seventh but we did get a few seconds of Jo Martin’s Fugitive Doctor who we’d first met during the rightfully derided Chibnall/Whittaker Timeless Children story arc.

Unless Martin is to re-appear as the next Doctor proper in the season finale, this appearance was pointless in the context of the story. Indeed, in the latest after-show Unleashed look behind the scenes, RTD said that this appearance was simply an acknowledgement, appropriate to the setting of the story, that we had had a black Doctor previously in the canon of the show. He seemed unaware that this contradicted the canon of the individual episode, where we’d already heard the Doctor play the victim as regards finding himself in a black body ‘for the first time.’ Maybe Ellams slipped that bit in without Davies noticing?

Conclusion

As I said at the beginning, The Story and The Engine didn’t offend me as much as Lucky Day, but I’d rate it fourth out of five so far this season, not far ahead of the last episode. It was instantly forgettable, and it’s unlikely I’ll ever watch it again.

Next week, it’s the Interstellar Song Contest, a tie-in with the oh-too-real-life Eurovision Song Contest. It’s been written by Juno Dawson, best known for his cryptically named opus How to be Gay. As great as that sounds already, it should be made all the better by the promise of the ‘Who Is Mrs. Flood’ reveal.

I should also mention that we also saw a little black girl at one point. I took this to be the little girl who was the first incarnation of the Doctor as seen in The Timeless Children. But the credits at the end revealed that it to have been ‘Poppy’ from the space station in episode one of ‘season one’. It seems she’ll be re-appearing in the finale, so maybe, as well as an answer to the riddle of Mys. Flood, we’ll also be getting a clue as to why RTD should have decided to open a brand-new era with Space Babies.

Anthony C Green, May 2025

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Exploring ‘Exterminate! Regenerate!’: A Unique Doctor Who Analysis

May 19, 2025 at 2:31 pm · Filed under Books, Doctor Who ·Tagged , , ,

Book cover of 'Exterminate! Regenerate!' by John Higgs, featuring a colorful spiral background and a Dalek in the foreground.

557 words, 3 minutes read time.

I read Higgs’ The KLF Chaos Magic and the Band Who Burned a Million Pounds some years ago. It was a fascinating read that led me to a brief, and unsuccessful, flirtation with Chaos Magic. The book featured a very interesting chapter on Doctor Who, my all-time favourite television show, so I was delighted to discover that the writer had now written a whole book on the subject.

It didn’t disappoint, expanding on the main themes of the chapter in his earlier work, arguing, to simplify, that the show has enjoyed such longevity that it has taken on the form of a living entity, changing and adapting to new conditions, and evolving in such a way that it creates the conditions for its own survival.

That might sound weird and artsy-fartsy, and I suppose it is. It does, however, make sense, though it would be impossible to do the author’s thesis justice in a short review. All I can do is urge people to read it, be they fans of the show or those with a more general interest in British popular culture.

You’ll gather from this that this is no ordinary Doctor Who book, and I suppose I should qualify my recommendation by saying that if you’re looking for a mainstream history of the show, with detailed production notes on the now close to nine hundred episodes in nearly sixty-two years, then look elsewhere. This is essentially a work of cultural criticism, written from an unusual and esoteric point of view.

It does present its analysis in a conventional structure. That is, it begins with the pre-history of the show and takes us chapter by chapter, Doctor by Doctor, from Hartnell the First in 1963,  through McCoy the Seventh, the last Doctor of the classic era that ended in 1989, and onwards through the ‘Wilderness Years of the nineties, McGann’s movie Doctor and the modern incarnation from Eccleston the Ninth in 2005 right up to the present day with Gatwa the Fifteenth/the Disney Doctor. Higgs’ Left-field analysis flows beautifully from this familiar structure.

There are many sub-themes to enjoy here. But I’ll mention just one. That is, the idea that the relationship of the BBC to the franchise is analogous to that of the Time Lords to the Doctor within the show’s lore and canon. Again, this might sound a bit ‘out there’ for some, but it really does work.

I don’t agree with the author on everything. He’s more of a liberal than I am, and his progressive views sometimes collapse into a form of cultural relativism where, in this context, one Doctor is every bit as important as every other. That’s not really a criticism. Higgs has chosen his path, and it’s a valid one that I thank him for sharing with us in such a thought-provoking and entertaining manner. However, there should also be a place for value judgment when discussing art/pop culture. Readers may be interested in checking out my reviews of the current ‘season 2’ of Disney Who. There are plenty of value judgments to be found there.

That aside, I have no hesitation in recommending Exterminate! Regenerate! It’s a book that’s well worth reading, from an author who is rapidly establishing a place among my favourite non-fiction authors.

Anthony c Green, May 2025

Exterminate/Regenerate

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Doctor Who: The War Games in Colour

January 25, 2025 at 3:33 am · Filed under Doctor Who, Film & DVD Reviews, TV Shows ·Tagged , , ,

Introduction

The ten-part original of The War Games, the last story of the Patrick Troughton/Second Doctor era, released in late 1969, has a special place in my heart. Although I have a hazy memory of William Hartnell’s First Doctor being accosted by Daleks on my family’s tiny, flickering black-and-white TV (I like to imagine this was in one of the ‘lost’ episodes, perhaps from the epic Dalek Masterplan), and I did watch Troughton’s Doctor regularly, as I know because I recall having an early existential crisis when the show was scheduled directly opposite another favourite, the Adam West-era Batman series on ITV in the Saturday tea-time post-football results slot, it is Troughton’s circling head before an unseen regeneration and temporary exile to modern-day Earth forced upon him by his ‘people’, the newly revealed Time Lords, which is my first clear Who memory.

The Second Doctor played by Patrick Troughton

The War Games: A Special Place in History

The changing of this ending for this newly colourised feature-length edit to incorporate his regeneration into Jon Pertwee’s dandyish action-hero Third Doctor was one of several concerns I had as I settled down to watch almost as soon as it was uploaded to the BBC iPlayer two days before Christmas.

In reality, Pertwee had not even been cast when The War Games ended, and at the time, though the seven-year-old me wouldn’t have been aware of this, it wasn’t a certainty that anyone would be cast to succeed Troughton. With radically fallen viewing figures compared to the peak of Dalek-mania in the mid-60s, the future of the show itself was in doubt.

Happily, Pertwee, who I still consider to be my Doctor, was cast and the series returned, and for the first time in glorious colour (and on film rather than the video, for that one story only) in the epic Spearhead From Space the following year, though, as for the majority of the British population, the era of colour television wouldn’t begin in the Green household for another two or three years yet.

Concerns About the New Colourised Version

Another concern was the precedent of last year’s Christmas ‘treat’, The Daleks in Colour. This had its good points. I thought the colourisation of this second-ever Who story from December 1964 worked well visually. The Dalek City on Scarrow, in particular, looked spectacular, with its weird angular construction revealing itself as if for the first time. But the edit, a reduction of a seven-part story of roughly twenty-five minutes each part down to a mere seventy-five minutes, was uneven, to say the least, and must have had many of those not familiar with the original scratching their heads as to how and why the action had suddenly switched from A to B. In that respect, it was vastly inferior to the non-canon but always in colour Peter Cushing movie of The Daleks, which was released in 1965 and was itself essentially a remake of the television serial, though with some crucial differences (like a fully human Doctor and a much younger Susan).

How much more difficult would it be to produce a coherent narrative out of the even longer War Games?

The Original vs. The New Edit

Like most fans, I’d also hated the replacement of the original, suitably eerie BBC Radiophonic soundtrack for The Daleks with a new musical score, which turned out to be so bombastic and overblown that it obscured parts of the dialogue. It was also woefully inappropriate in places. In one scene, the music was better suited to a sketch involving Benny Hill chasing bikini-clad lovelies around a field on ITV in the unenlightened 1970s than a classic vintage Science Fiction story.

I was therefore not best pleased that The War Games had also been provided with a new musical score by longtime modern Who composer Murray Gold.

Music and Soundtrack Changes

Again, the music was a trifle loud at times, but not to the extent of The Daleks in Colour, with the dialogue remaining audible at all times to my ears (though opinions differ on this), and Murray Gold incorporated many of the elements of Dudley Simpson’s (excellent) original score into his work for the new version.

Additions to the Story

There was also the matter of additions being made to the story to fit parts of the show’s canon that had not yet been thought of, the most glaring example in the new version of The Daleks being our favourite ‘pepper pots’ (as Pertwee, never a Dalek fan, derisively called them) blaring ‘Exterminate!’ at every available opportunity, a catchphrase, if such it could be called, they would not fully adopt for another two Dalek-based serials, until Series Two’s The Chase in 1965. (The word was used in the first Dalek story, but not as a prelude to offloading their weaponry).

The new effects had been decent enough, but the newly added Dalek voices most definitely weren’t, despite the involvement of go-to Dalek voice guy Nicholas Briggs.

The War Chief and The Master Debate

We then come to two main points of controversy, both of which occurred in the slower-paced, lore-heavy, and very enjoyable last quarter of the feature.

Firstly, for years, fans have debated the question of whether The War Chief was an earlier incarnation of the Doctor’s later chief nemesis The Master, who would not be introduced until two years later in season eight’s The Terror of the Autons, played by the late-great Roger Delgado. The consensus was that he was not, and though the issue has never been addressed on TV, where The War Chief has never re-appeared, the expanded Who media of novels, short stories, comics, and Big Finish Audio adventures (a world in which I’m little more than a sporadic dabbler) have seemed to confirm that he was indeed a separate character.

However, in The War Games in Colour strong hints are given that the War Chief is indeed an earlier incarnation of The Master. This is done subtly via Murray Gold’s adaptation of the score to include musical references associated with both Delgado’s Master and the excellent Sound of Drums theme he composed for use during the John Simms incarnation of the character in modern Who. In addition, as a further sonic clue, as The War Chief is killed about twenty minutes before the feature concludes, a little too easily for my liking, we hear the faintest beginnings of the sound that usually marks the commencement of a Time Lord regeneration process in the post-2005 show.

Initially, I was ambivalent about the issue. I would have been quite happy to have kept them as two separate characters, as I’d always assumed them to be, but I could also see the sense and appeal of establishing The War Chief as an earlier version of The Master, especially as the gap between the emergence of the two was relatively short, about two years in real-life Earth years.

Regeneration Scene Changes

we come to the regeneration of Second into Third, Troughton into Pertwee. One thing I most definitely didn’t like, and fandom is almost united as one non this, was the alteration of the scene when, after the conclusion of their summary trial of the Doctor on Gallifrey (which looks tremendous in the new version by the way, in the brief outdoor shots), where he was offered a degree of choice as to the form his new self would take post-regeneration. In the original, the Doctor was shown simple pencil drawings of possible faces which he rejected one by one as ‘Too fat!’ ‘Too thin!’ ‘Too Old!’ etc.

In this revised version, he is shown photographs of actual future modern Doctors, namely Capaldi’s Twelfth (‘Too old!’), Tennant’s Tenth (‘Too Thin!’) Matt Smith’s Eleventh (‘Too Young!’), and Whittaker’s Thirteenth (no comment, which could be seen as a silent commentary on how Troughton’s Doctor might have received the possibility of a sudden sex change, or indeed of how the idea of a female Doctor might have been perceived by fans of the show in 1969).

We lose ‘Too fat!’ from this scene completely, as ‘fat shaming’ is now deemed to be one of those things we all must oppose, though ‘thin shaming’, is apparently, fine.

I can see no reason other than to troll longstanding fans for the inclusion of the modern Doctors in this section, and it would stretch even the most psychedelically enhanced ‘Head-Canon’ to fathom how this even works ‘in-universe’, especially as they were shown in their full Doctor outfits. A much better idea, in my opinion, would have been to have Troughton’s Doctor reject photographs of actors who at one time or another were mooted to play the part, but who ended up not doing so, actors such as Ken Campbell, the best Doctor we never had, and whose audition was rejected as ‘too weird’, Michael Crawford (who was first choice for the 1996 TV Movie but was unwilling to commit to another possibly long-running role after many lengthy runs in Broadway musical productions, Brian Blessed, the recently sadly departed Tony Slattery (whose own audition for the TV Movie can be found online, along with Slattery squirming with embarrassment at his performance as he reviews it years later), Paul Daniels (Seriously. The fact that he was even considered is an indication of how low in the BBC’s estimation the show had sunk under the stewardship of chief-Who-hater Michael Grade by the 1980s), and Joanna Lumley (my choice at one time, and who did very briefly play the role, along with Rowan Atkinson and a host of others in the 1999 Steven Moffatt penned Children in Need short The Case of Fatal Death.)

Something along these lines would at least have been funny, though there would also have been nothing wrong with sticking with the original pencil drawings.

The regeneration itself was in line with the almost uniform format of the modern show. I hope a similar uniformity isn’t imposed on other classic-era transitions from one Doctor to another.

But for all that, it was quite nicely done, adapted from a fan creation by one Jacob Booth which had been knocking around on YouTube for a while. At least the BBC had the decency to credit and pay him.

It’s also worth mentioning that many of us breathed a sigh of relief that we at least got a straight Troughton to Pertwee transition. The worry had been that the opportunity may have been taken to shoe-horn The Fugitive Doctor, a hitherto unknown incarnation who emerged during the hated Chibnall/Whittaker era, who, although very well portrayed by actress Jo Martin, further muddied the waters of the show’s ever-looser canon by having no credible place to fit within the pantheon, into place between the two.

One objection to the notion of including a regeneration scene at all was that it would mess up the beloved idea of the mythical ‘Series 6B’. This is a series of stories, official and unofficial, mostly in the form of novels and audio, that take advantage of the lack of a physical regeneration at the end of the War Games, to imagine a series of adventures that Troughton’s Doctor undertook at the behest of the Time Lords before he takes on his new form in Series 7.

However, enough of a gap is left before Troughton is seen in the process of transformation, sitting on a chair in the Tardis before staggering out of the door at the start of Spearhead From Space, Pertwee’s debut in the role, for Series 6B to survive.

Final Thoughts on The War Games in Colour

And that really is it. Despite my criticisms and reservations and the understandable controversies the production has elicited, I did think The War Games in Colour was an excellent Christmas gift, well worth ninety minutes of your life, and perhaps the best thing Russell T Davis has yet given us since he once again took up the reigns as Overlord of his newly extended ‘Whoniverse’ (ugh!).

Conclusion

The War Games in Colour is available to watch on the BBC iPlayer (at least if you live in the UK) and presumably will continue to be so until we get a physical release, which is surprisingly not due until January 2026.

Recommended.

Anthony C Green, Jan’ 2025

Picture credit

By BBC – http://www.shillpages.com/dw/trougp03.jpg, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1182131

Book cover of 'The Angela Suite' by Anthony C. Green, featuring an abstract background and feet at the bottom, with a vintage aesthetic.

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Review: Delia Derbyshire: The Myths and the Legendary Tapes

December 18, 2023 at 10:16 am · Filed under Biographical, Documentaries, TV Shows ·Tagged , , ,

Delia Derbyshire: The Myths and the Legendary Tapes

(Arena, 2021)

BBC iPlayer – Delia Derbyshire: The Myths and the Legendary Tapes

Reviewed by Anthony C Green

Delia Derbyshire at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop

1,836 words, 10 minutes read time.

I’ve written about Delia Derbyshire of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop before, in relation to Paul McCartney’s admiration of her work, and their sole mid-sixties meeting, to which I link at the end of this article. But amidst the generally, so far, not well received 60th anniversary celebrations of Doctor Who, to which I’ll probably return in a separate article, it was nice to find this little gem, a full ninety-minute documentary on Delia tucked away as part of the often excellent and long-running Arena series on the BBC iPlayer.

Delia is of course best known for her work on the theme tune for Who, which first aired on November 23rd, 1963, the day after the assassination of John F Kennedy. Although not technically the composer of the tune, it was her manipulation of tape to produce the eerie electronic, futuristic sound of the theme that was crucial to its success. Her treatment of Ron Grainer’s basic melody was so radical that when Grainer first heard the finished work, he was said to have exclaimed: ‘Did I really write that?’

Although, like the Doctor himself, the theme has gone through many incarnations over the decades, it has always remained close enough to Delia’s original as to be instantly recognisable. Indeed, a ‘Doctor Who’ which began without it simply wouldn’t be Doctor Who. If we require evidence of this assertion, then you need only look at the two mid-sixties none-canon ‘Doctor Who’ movies starring Peter Cushing. You know they are not canon precisely because they don’t begin with it, though other reasons also soon become apparent.

It’s sad that only posthumously, twelve years after her death, aged sixty-four in July 2001, following long periods of struggle with alcohol and mental health issues, was she at last awarded a full co-writing credit for the Who theme, her name finally taking its place alongside Grainer’s as the final credits rolled at the end of excellent The Day of the Doctor fiftieth anniversary special in 2013. She was also depicted, albeit too briefly in the otherwise equally excellent An Adventure in Space and Time television, a dramatisation of the birth and early days of the show.

But Delia was about so much more than Doctor Who in any case, and finally, in this documentary, she gets the acknowledgement her role in the development of modern electronic music she deserves.

The programme utilises a drama-documentary format, written and starring Caroline Catz, who turns in a superb performance playing Delia in the dramatised sections. The beautifully, suitably eerie, weird and eclectic soundtrack was created by musician and performance artist Cosio Fanni Tutti, utilising material found on 267 reel-to-reel tapes, the ‘Lost Tapes’ of the title, which were discovered in Delia’s flat at the time of her death, in what Fan Tutti has described as ‘a collaboration across time.’

Excerpts from a charmingly scatty, clearly intoxicated radio interview she gave not long before her death are also inserted at appropriate moments throughout the film.

Through Catz’ words and performance, we see Delia as a geeky Cambridge graduate in mathematics and Music, at a time when female Cambridge graduates were still something of a rarity, especially in such arcane subject-combinations, telling an incredulous Career’s Officer that she wants to work in a field which allows her to explore the relationship between mathematics and sound/music, casually dropping in a reference to Pythagoras work on the subject as she does so. ‘Have you considered working with deaf aids?’ offers the out of his depth officer. Delia looks at him with a bemusement which beautifully mirrored his own: ‘No, have you?’

The documentary is full of such scenes, which show Delia to be a talented, strong-willed young woman with a clear idea of what she wanted to achieve, and an equally clear awareness that very few avenues existed through which she might achieve them.

In the Britain of the late nineteen fifties/early nineteen sixties, there was perhaps only one such avenue was open to her; and that was the BBC Radiophonic Worksop.

Despite being opened by the equally important electronic music pioneer Daphne Oram in 1958, the Workshop was very much a man’s world. It was also a place to which BBC operatives who didn’t really fit in anywhere else ‘sent,’ rather than a location of desire. The fact that Delia fought for the right to work in such an environment was seen within the Beeb as the height of eccentricity, but this keenness, once it was acknowledged, virtually guaranteed her the position she coveted.

We see the likes of Oram and Brian Hodgson, who would become her most important collaborator, doing their best in very difficult, cramped, under-funded circumstances to produce whatever sound effects would be required for this or that radio or television production using the limited equipment at their disposal.

These were seen as purely technical tasks. The idea that these BBC workers could also be creatives, fully-fledged composers using tape, found-sound and new-fangled ‘oscillators’ as the means to create new music was effectively born with Delia and her Workshop colleagues. Indeed, despite being accomplished on piano, violin, double-bass and harpsichord, Delia was informed on her arrival at the BBC in 1962 that they didn’t use the ‘m’ (music) word at the Workshop, their job was to create ‘special sounds’, certainly not to compose.

(Britain was rather behind the loop here in comparison to America. The husband-and-wife team Bebe and Louis Baron had produced a purely electronic score for the great Science Fiction movie The Forbidden Planet in 1956).

Delia was always under-appreciated for her work at the Workshop, and so naturally sought to establish herself as part of the emergent sixties’ left-fielf musical Zeitgeist through outside projects like the short-lived Unit Delta Plus trio with Hodgson and Peter Zinoviev, during which time her meeting with McCartney took place. This outfit gave perhaps their one and only public performance at the Million Volt Light and Sound Wave in 1967, an event whose main claim to fame is that it marked one of only two occasions when the Beatles still to this day unreleased Carnival of Light track was played.

Perhaps her most influential and ahead of its time work was the White Noise album credited to Electric Storm, where she again partnered Hodgson, with input also from David Vorhaus, another key figure on this scene in this period. The British DJ and writer Stuart Maconie has described the experience of walking alone in the pitch-black of the English countryside late at night with the album blasting through his headphones as being one of the most sonically mind-blowing events of his life.

Fascinating clips from archived interviews with the likes of Hodgson, Zinovieff and Vorhaus are also featured at relevant points in the documentary, which help to place Delia in the context of her time, and properly allocate to her the pivotal role she played at the centre of the British musical Avant-Garde.

Interestingly, Delia herself ascribed her love of what she termed ‘abstract music’ as having been influenced by the ubiquitous sound of the air raid warning during the Second World War. Having been born in Coventry in 1938, and remained there, the most bombed city in Britain, with her family throughout hostilities, her young ears would have heard a lot of that siren.

Delia would often seek work outside of the BBC under a pseudonym, to help her to make something resembling a living, for instance in the early 1970’s on commercial television Science Fiction rivals to Doctor Who, such as The Tomorrow People and Timeslip (the latter being a show very few but me seem to recall).

Although you may not know the name of many of the titles of much of the music Delia composed whilst she was at the Workshop, anyone who grew up watching British television in the 1960’s and 1970’s will recognise the music once they hear it, especially those familiar with SF, nature programmes, and the more slightly ‘out there’ end of children’s television.

She left the BBC in 1972, and by 1974 she’d reached such a state of disillusionment that she gave up music entirely, spending over two decades in a variety of jobs, including as an operator and English French translator for British gas, and nomadic wanderings, only returning to music as new generations came to appreciate her towards the end of her life.

One very telling scene in the film shows young people dancing enthusiastically to a beat-heavy piece of music she’d composed in 1971. It sounded more like something that would have emerged from the Rave culture of almost three decades later.

It is thanks to the likes of Cosy Fanni Tutti that the ‘lost tapes’ have now been digitally preserved, the originals stored at Manchester University. Selections from them have now also become commercially available for the first time.

And thanks to films like this 2021 Arena special, it’s likely that more and more younger people will discover something of the fascinating life and music of the woman behind the Doctor Who theme, and that she about so much more than Doctor Who theme.

It’s also telling that, in that late-life radio interview, though certainly sounding a little the worse for wear, she shows no sign of bitterness at the direction her life took. This point is reinforced by Catz, who imagines her ridiculing the obituaries that attempted to make her into a tragic figure.

She acknowledges her fondness for booze but does not accept any form of cliched ‘struggle against addiction’.

‘Never a problem, always a pleasure,’ Catz has her say, and though the actor/author is using license to put these words into Delia’s mouth, they somehow ring true of everything we see and hear of the real Delia here.

From her interviews and from the accounts of those who knew and worked with her, she seems to have been a truly lovable British eccentric who was a lot of fun to be around.

It’s hard to imagine a woman with a fondness for snuff and for describing herself as being ‘tickled pink’ not being fun to be around.

She was also, of course, a key figure in the development of electronic music, and an important trailblazer and role-model for the position of women in the arts in Britain.

This is a documentary worthy of her life and accomplishments, which also beautifully captures her idiosyncrasies. The music is great too, Fanni Tutti doing a fine job in turning Delia’s unknown home experiments into the perfect sonic accompaniment to this fine account of her life.  

Anthony C Green, December 2023

My earlier article on Delia. Interestingly, her meeting with Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones is discussed in the film, but not the meeting with McCartney I covered here: Anthony C Green – A short article on the mid-sixties meeting… | Facebook

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Culture Vulture (28th of October to 3rd of November 2023)

October 28, 2023 at 6:23 am · Filed under Culture Vulture, Film & DVD Reviews ·Tagged , , , , ,

Welcome to Culture Vulture your guide to the week’s entertainment from an alternative viewpoint. Highlights this week include, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood: a heartwarming biographical drama that explores the transformative friendship between journalist Lloyd Vogel and beloved television personality Fred Rogers; George Carlin’s American Dream, an insightful documentary that delves into the sharp wit and provocative social commentary of the iconic comedian George Carlin, and a stylish and suspenseful thriller that follows a fashion photographer who experiences disturbing premonitions of murders through her lens. Selections and reviews are by Pat Harrington and music is by Tim Bragg.

Saturday 28th of October 2023

Discovery Film: Horror Special 11pm Sky Arts

“Discovering Film: Horror Special” is a Sky Arts program that features authors and film critics discussing their favorite horror movies. The show is hosted by Mark Kermode, the well-known British film critic and writer. The program is part of the “Discovering Film” series, which celebrates the lives and work of some of the most prolific and iconic Hollywood stars.

The “Horror Special” episode features Bonnie Greer, Ian Nathan, and other film critics discussing their favorite horror movies, including “The Omen,” “The Exorcist,” and “Frankenstein”.

A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood (2019) 1.05am C4

“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” (2019) is a heartwarming film that beautifully exemplifies social and ethical themes, making it not just a movie but a poignant lesson in compassion and the importance of human connection.

The film revolves around the iconic children’s TV host Fred Rogers, portrayed masterfully by Tom Hanks. Rogers is the epitome of kindness, empathy, and moral integrity. His unwavering commitment to promoting emotional intelligence, understanding, and acceptance resonates deeply in today’s world, where society often struggles with divisiveness and intolerance.

One of the central ethical themes of the movie is forgiveness. The character of journalist Lloyd Vogel, played by Matthew Rhys, harbors deep-seated resentment and anger, illustrating how grudges can weigh us down. Through his interactions with Rogers, we witness the transformative power of forgiveness and the importance of letting go of past grievances, a message that is highly relevant in a world marred by grudges and conflicts.

The film also tackles the theme of authenticity in a society often characterized by superficiality and pretense. Fred Rogers’ genuine and unapologetic sincerity challenges the prevailing notion that cynicism is a sign of maturity. His authenticity serves as a reminder of the ethical imperative to be true to oneself, a message that is increasingly valuable in a world where superficiality often masks our true feelings and identities.

“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” explores the profound impact of positive role models. In a society where celebrity culture can often overshadow true moral and ethical role models, Fred Rogers stands as a shining example of someone who used his fame to spread positivity and change lives for the better. The film encourages viewers to seek out and celebrate such inspirational figures who promote values like kindness, empathy, and inclusivity.

“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” is a deeply moving and thought-provoking film that delves into social and ethical themes that are particularly relevant in our contemporary society. Through the character of Fred Rogers, the film emphasizes the importance of kindness, forgiveness, authenticity, and the need for positive role models to guide us towards a more compassionate and ethical world. It is a reminder that we should all strive to be a little bit more like Mr. Rogers in our daily lives.

Sunday 29th of October 2023

George Carlin’s American Dream 3pm Sky Documentaries

“George Carlin’s American Dream” is a documentary film directed by Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio that chronicles the life and work of the legendary comedian George Carlin 12. The documentary opens an intimate window into Carlin’s personal life, including his childhood in New York City, his long struggle with drugs that took its toll on his health, his brushes with the law, his loving relationship with Brenda, and more 32.

The first part of the documentary follows Carlin’s rise to fame in the 1960s comedy scene and his realization that he was meant for something edgier than the mainstream variety-show circuit. The second part of the documentary focuses on Carlin’s later years, including his political activism, his thoughts on religion, and his legacy as one of the most influential comedians of all time.

Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover 8.25pm PBS America

“Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover” is a two-hour documentary produced by PBS America that explores Elon Musk’s relationship with Twitter. The documentary delves into Musk’s journey from being one of the platform’s most provocative users to its sole proprietor, exploring the acquisition, free speech, and the company’s uncertain future.

Under The Skin (2013 film) 1.40am Film4

“Under the Skin” (2013), directed by Jonathan Glazer, is a hauntingly enigmatic and visually striking film that delves deep into themes of loneliness, love, and human identity, creating an unsettling exploration of the human condition.

Loneliness is a pervasive theme throughout the film, as Scarlett Johansson’s character, an alien in human form, roams the streets of Scotland in search of solitary men. The film’s portrayal of loneliness is chilling, as it highlights how disconnected individuals can be in a densely populated world. The alien protagonist preys on the isolated, echoing the idea that loneliness can make people vulnerable, susceptible to manipulation, and yearning for any form of connection.

Love, on the other hand, is depicted as an alien concept to the protagonist. Her dispassionate and predatory nature contrasts sharply with the human capacity for emotional connection. As she observes the fleeting moments of human affection, the film raises questions about the authenticity and depth of human love. It challenges viewers to contemplate the sincerity of our emotions and whether genuine love can exist in a world where superficiality often masks our true intentions.

The exploration of human identity in “Under the Skin” is a central and perplexing theme. As the alien takes on a human guise, she begins to question her own identity and purpose. This theme forces us to reflect on the complexities of identity, the masks we wear in society, and the search for a genuine sense of self. The film pushes us to consider what it truly means to be human, as the protagonist’s experiences lead her to grapple with emotions and self-awareness.

The film’s abstract and visually arresting style, paired with Mica Levi’s haunting musical score, enhances the sense of alienation and detachment. The imagery and sound design draw viewers into an eerie, dreamlike world that reflects the isolation and emotional detachment felt by the characters.

“Under the Skin” is a thought-provoking and unsettling exploration of loneliness, love, and human identity. It challenges us to examine the nature of human connection and the intricacies of human emotions. Through its enigmatic narrative and striking visuals, the film leaves a lasting impression, inviting viewers to contemplate the depths of the human experience and our capacity for both cruelty and compassion. It’s a film that lingers in the mind long after the credits roll, provoking profound questions about the human condition.

Coco (2017 film) 2.05pm BBC1

“Coco” (2017), directed by Lee Unkrich and Adrian Molina, is a heartwarming and visually stunning animated film that not only captivates the audience with its vibrant portrayal of Mexican culture but also explores profound themes of family, memory, and the power of pursuing one’s passion.

Set against the backdrop of the Mexican tradition of Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), “Coco” invites viewers into a vibrant and enchanting world where the boundary between the living and the deceased is beautifully blurred. The film weaves a compelling narrative that explores the importance of remembering and honoring one’s ancestors, making it a celebration of Mexican culture and an ode to the universal theme of family.

At its core, “Coco” delves into the theme of family. The story revolves around Miguel, a young boy with a burning desire to become a musician, despite his family’s strict ban on music. This central conflict between Miguel’s passion and his family’s traditions leads to a touching exploration of the complexities of familial relationships. The film powerfully conveys the idea that family is a source of both love and friction, and it teaches us the importance of understanding, forgiveness, and the bonds that tie generations together.

“Coco” also introduces the concept of memory and how it connects generations. As the characters journey through the Land of the Dead, they discover that one’s memory can determine whether they continue to exist in the afterlife. This theme encourages viewers to reflect on the significance of the stories and memories we inherit and pass on, emphasizing the idea that our loved ones live on through our remembrance.

Visually, “Coco” is a breathtaking masterpiece. The animation is rich in detail, and the Land of the Dead is a vibrant, kaleidoscopic world that is a treat for the eyes. The film’s musical score is equally remarkable, with memorable songs that capture the essence of Mexican folklore and tradition.

“Coco” is a heartwarming and visually mesmerizing animated film that celebrates the rich tapestry of Mexican culture while touching on universal themes of family, memory, and the pursuit of one’s dreams. Its messages about the power of remembering and the enduring bonds of family resonate with viewers of all ages, making it a truly heartwarming and memorable cinematic experience.

Monday 30th of October 2023

This Cultural Life: Werner Herzog 2.15pm BBC RADIO 4

German film-maker and writer Werner Herzog talks to John Wilson about his cultural inspirations.

Night Of The Demon (1957 film) 10.05pm Talking Pictures

“Night of the Demon” (1957), directed by Jacques Tourneur, is a classic horror film that stands the test of time, offering a masterclass in suspense, supernatural intrigue, and psychological terror.

The film, based on M.R. James’s story “Casting the Runes,” is a brilliant example of atmospheric horror. It skillfully balances the ambiguity of the supernatural with the rational skepticism of its characters. This duality keeps the audience on the edge of their seats, questioning whether the malevolent force is real or a figment of the characters’ imaginations.

One of the film’s standout features is its intelligent and engrossing plot. It follows Dr. John Holden, played by Dana Andrews, an American skeptic who investigates the alleged supernatural powers of the sinister Dr. Julian Karswell, portrayed by Niall MacGinnis. The tension escalates as Holden delves deeper into the mystery, and the sense of foreboding grows with every revelation, leading to a climactic and chilling finale.

“Night of the Demon” explores the theme of the battle between science and the supernatural. Dr. Holden represents rationality and skepticism, while Karswell embodies the occult and the unexplained. This clash of worldviews adds depth to the narrative, making it more than just a typical horror film. It questions the limits of human knowledge and confronts the audience with the unknown.

The film’s cinematography is striking, with Tourneur’s expert use of shadows and lighting to create an eerie and unsettling atmosphere. The demon itself, when finally revealed, is a testament to the practical effects of the era, adding a sense of dread and mystique to the story.

In terms of performances, Dana Andrews and Niall MacGinnis deliver compelling portrayals of their respective characters. MacGinnis, in particular, infuses his role with a sinister charm that leaves a lasting impression.

“Night of the Demon” is a vintage horror gem that relies on suspense and psychological horror rather than gore and jump scares. Its enduring appeal lies in its ability to leave the audience with persistent questions and an abiding sense of unease, making it a must-see for classic horror enthusiasts and a reminder of the potency of old-fashioned storytelling and atmosphere in the genre.

Tuesday 31st of October 2023

How Safe is Maternity Care? 8pm BBC RADIO 4

Ten years ago, journalist Krupa Padhy lost her first child because of medical negligence. Now she wants to find out what, if anything, has changed in Britain’s maternity wards.

Wednesday 1st of November 2023

Doctor Who @ 60: A Musical Celebration 8.30pm BBC4

“Doctor Who @ 60: A Musical Celebration” is a special concert that celebrates the iconic and much-loved TV series. The concert features the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the BBC Singers, conducted by Alastair King.

The concert is part of the celebrations for the 60th anniversary of Doctor Who. The show features music from the series’ most memorable episodes, including “The Daleks,” “The Tomb of the Cybermen,” and “The Day of the Doctor” . The concert also includes performances by guest artists such as Murray Gold, who composed music for the series from 2005 to 2018.

Thursday 2nd of November 2023

In Our Time: Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics 9am BBC RADIO 4

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Aristotle’s influential approach to the questions of how to live a good life and what happiness means, originally aimed at the elite in Athens.

Friday 3rd of November 2023

Eyes Of Laura Mars (1978 film) 9.05pm Talking Pictures

“Eyes of Laura Mars” (1978), directed by Irvin Kershner, is a stylish and provocative thriller that, beneath its glossy exterior, delves into social themes of the late 1970s, enriched by the disquieting fact that Laura’s photography often involves capturing women in degrading or violent poses. These themes add a layer of social commentary to its gripping narrative, reflecting the era’s changing societal attitudes.

At its core, the film mirrors the shifting societal dynamics concerning women and their roles. The titular character, Laura Mars, portrayed by Faye Dunaway, is a successful fashion photographer who becomes a witness to a series of gruesome murders. Her profession as a photographer offers a unique lens through which to examine the objectification of women in media, a theme that was gaining prominence during the feminist movement of the 1970s. Laura’s glamorous, high-fashion world is contrasted with the violence and voyeurism that she encounters, emphasizing the tension between image and reality, which parallels the challenges women faced in their struggle for empowerment.

The film also touches upon the theme of voyeurism and the intrusion of the private into the public sphere. As Laura Mars’ work involves capturing intimate and often exploitative moments through her camera lens, it raises questions about the ethics of surveillance and the invasion of privacy, a theme that has only become more pertinent in today’s digital age.

Furthermore, “Eyes of Laura Mars” explores the idea of desensitization to violence through media. In the film, Laura’s work blurs the line between art and exploitation, mirroring the concerns of society regarding the effects of graphic or sensationalized media content on its consumers. This theme of desensitization to violence has continued to be a topic of discussion in contemporary society, particularly in the context of video games, film, and television.

The film’s social commentary is enriched by its compelling blend of fashion and crime genres, creating a layered narrative that not only entertains but also prompts reflection on the cultural shifts of its time. “Eyes of Laura Mars” serves as a captivating exploration of the changing role of women in society, the ethical dilemmas of media, and the desensitizing impact of violent imagery, all within the unsettling context of Laura’s photographic choices. Its ability to engage with these themes while delivering a suspenseful and stylish story makes it a thought-provoking and enduring piece of cinema.

And finally, Mean Streets (1973 film) 11.10pm Film4

“Mean Streets” (1973), directed by Martin Scorsese, is a gritty and groundbreaking film that delves deep into the social themes of its time while providing a raw and unfiltered glimpse into the lives of its characters.

Set against the backdrop of New York’s Little Italy, the film explores the harsh realities of urban life, crime, and the struggle for survival. It paints a vivid portrait of a close-knit community where social bonds and codes of conduct are deeply ingrained. The characters, particularly the central figures of Charlie, played by Harvey Keitel, and Johnny Boy, portrayed by Robert De Niro, grapple with their roles within this social fabric. Their personal struggles mirror the broader challenges faced by the working-class youth of the era.

One of the central social themes of “Mean Streets” is the clash between personal desires and societal expectations. Charlie, a devout Catholic, aspires to find a balance between his moral values and the criminal activities he’s entangled in. This inner conflict reflects the broader tension within the generation, as traditional values often conflicted with the countercultural and rebellious movements of the 1970s.

The film also touches upon the theme of identity and self-discovery. The characters in “Mean Streets” are searching for a sense of self, trying to define their place in a rapidly changing society. Their journey is a microcosm of the larger social transformation occurring in the United States during the post-Vietnam War era.

Another noteworthy social aspect explored in the film is the concept of masculinity. The characters’ struggles with authority, power, and machismo shed light on the societal expectations and stereotypes of masculinity in an environment where toughness and aggression are highly valued.

“Mean Streets” is notable for its unfiltered and authentic portrayal of urban life, tackling issues such as crime, loyalty, family, and the search for personal identity. Scorsese’s use of vibrant music, kinetic cinematography, and a richly detailed setting creates a visceral experience that immerses the viewer in the streets of Little Italy.

“Mean Streets” is not just a film; it’s a snapshot of a time and place that captures the complex social themes and tensions of the 1970s. Its exploration of the clash between tradition and rebellion, personal and societal expectations, and the quest for identity within the microcosm of Little Italy continues to resonate with audiences and remains a landmark in American cinema for its powerful social commentary.

Picture Credits

Culture Vulture Image by Kollectiv Future with permission.
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
By Sony Pictures Releasing – http://www.impawards.com/2019/beautiful_day_in_the_neighborhood.html, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61900962
Under The Skin
By A24 Films – IMP Awards, Kellerhouse, Inc., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42597010
Coco
By http://www.comingsoon.net/movies/news/886977-new-coco-poster-celebrates-the-day-of-the-dead-pixar-style#/slide/1, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47613889
Eyes Of Laura Mars
Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18528867
Night Of The Demon
Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8913138
Mean Streets
By May be found at the following website: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070379/mediaindex?page=3&ref_=ttmi_mi_sm, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=63535900

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