Doctor Who: The Long Game

“Look at me- I’m stupid!”

Again we’re introduced to this week’s setting by means of on-screen media- a developing RTD trope- but this time it turns out to be the focus of the story as well. We also have an extra character in Adam, allowing this to be the first of two sort-of Doctor-Lite stories. And at last we get to a story I’ve been confidently expecting to award less than 5/5 to, which was going to be a good thing- after all, giving 5/5 to every story since Rose would be rather embarrassing, wouldn’t it. Er, well…

Annoyingly for my plans, we get a rather good beginning. It’s the year 200,000 (that RTD likes his big round numbers, don’t he?), it’s Satellite 5, and it’s the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire. I remember being a little underwhelmed by the design four years ago but this time round I couldn’t see what made me think that- and it’s supposed to look rather less impressive than the Doctor’s expecting it to in any case. It’s all looking very 2000 AD, too, with Kronkburgers and all. And, as we’ll see, the way the subtext is done feels very 2000 AD, too. Much like the last two McCoy seasons did, in fact. There’s another thing I’ve learned from this Marathon; there’s far more continuity in style and content (Ace is also a kind of prototype Rose) between the McCoy years and the Eccleston years than I’d previously appreciated.

TV news is produced here, and it’s staffed by journalists, one of whom, Cathica, will be our audience identification character for this evening. And the journalists exist in a claustrophobic corporate atmosphere in which the ultimate is to be promoted to Floor 500, where “the walls are made of gold”. In the hands of a lesser writer this would already be food enough to supply the subtext for a forty-five minute tale. But we also get Simon Pegg and some interesting character stuff between Rose and Adam. On the one hand Rose is enjoying the chance to pose as the experienced traveller, but it’s clear that she’s unimpressed by him. He’s overwhelmed and needs to get away, and in doing so both rejects Rose’s lifestyle and subtly disappoints her. But worse, he has a selfish agenda.

There are increasing hints that all is not well; Suki is promoted to Floor 500, but we’re told, ominously, that those who go there never come back. Worse than that, though, is that Cathica, and those like her, are supposed to be journalists but show little or no curiosity for the world around them. Things just go unquestioned; Cathica hasn’t noticed the lack of aliens until it’s pointed out to her, casually guessing that security must have been tightened because of vaguely defined “threats” (“The usual stuff”)- a blatantly obvious bit of contemporary satire which I don’t remember noticing at the time and which also seems to have gone unnoticed in the media just a couple of weeks after RTD’s “massive weapons of destruction”. It just goes to show how much you can get away with in terms of satire when there are elements of the fantastic to hide it behind.

Things are not as they should be. Humanity’s development has been set back ninety years, and News Internatio- er, Satellite Five has been there for 91 years. Most damning of all is that the Doctor and Rose, who’ve only been there five minutes, instantly work out what’s going on and quickly get themselves to Floor 500 while Cathica just worries about getting into trouble and constantly fails to spot the obvious.

Adam, meanwhile, is behaving rather less impressively than the Doctor and Rose, having surgery to implant an “info-spike” for the purpose of relaying future tech to his family’s answer phone back in the 21st century so he can get rich. It’s a funny scene, but the consequences are going to be deadly serious, as the Doctor and Rose finally reach Floor 500 where they meet the Editor and his boss, the Jagrafess. And going by the beast’s appearance, it looks as though they got the real Rupert Murdoch to play him. Now there’s an impressive piece of casting.

We get a bit more juicy subtext which tears wonderfully into the tabloids’ favourite hobby horses (“Create a climate of fear and it’s easy to keep the borders closed,”), including a bit which has improved with end- the Editor represents a consortium of banks! But, essentially, our heroes are in dire peril, not helped by the fact that Adam has been an utter pillock and shown the Editor all of their innermost secrets. Fortunately, though, Cathica, “a member of staff with an idea,” has been listening, and saves the day. It’s the first time, but not the last, that an incidental character ends up as the hero, having been made a better person by the Doctor’s example- another fine RTD trope. And her ordinariness is wonderfully emphasised by the Editor’s dismissive “Who’s that?”

Adam, on the other hand, is dumped back on Earth for being such an utter pillock, and the family answer phone feels the wrath of the sonic screwdriver. “I only take the best,” says the Doctor. “I’ve got Rose.” In no way is this tempting fate for the next episode…

Er, it really has to be another 5/5, I’m afraid. Sorry. Duly embarrassed and all that. You never know, the season could still end up with less than a perfect score. It could happen. Seriously, though, it’s really surprised me how much I liked this. It’s the second new series story to enter my top ten, and the best so far of the twenty-first century.

Doctor Who: Dalek

“You would make a good Dalek.”



Blimey. It’s been ages since my last review. And they probably won’t be all too frequent until the New Year, after which I’ll really get going. Anyway…

We’ve established the new format, with a story in the far future, a story in the past, some present day alien invasion hi-jinks, and a lot of rather clever and knowing deconstruction of the series and its tropes. Here, this time from Rob Shearman, we get what feels like our first “regular” story now that the format has been set up, but also one which develops the Time War stuff and the season’s arc.

The Doctor and Rose land in a museum of alien artifacts somewhere beneath Utah in 2012, where they find among other things the arm of a Slitheen and the head of a Revenge era Cyberman. Which would presumably be from the 29th century, but best not to dwell on such things. Anyway, they’re soon caught and taken to the museum’s owner, amoral tycoon Henry Van Statten. Van Statten is a fantastic villain, casually wiping the memories of people who annoy him and casually leaving them as homeless junkies on a street somewhere. He also owns the Internet, apparently, and also seems to somehow choose the President of the USA.

Van Statten has managed to capture a real alien creature, which he calls a “Metaltron”. This is of course a Dalek, and the moment the Doctor realises what else is in the room with him is, ahem, fantastic. Eccleston plays this very intensely indeed, and we soon discover that not only is this the last Dalek, but it was the Daleks the Time Lords were fighting against in the Time War. The Dalek and the Doctor are each the last of their kind, and both prisoners of Van Statten. This is a very different way of presenting a Dalek- not only is there only one, in a position of apparent vulnerability, but the whole Time War angle makes us look at them afresh.

Meanwhile, Rose goes off with Adam, Van Statten’s annoying underling, a character I couldn’t look at for more than two seconds without the word “Hollyoaks” occurring to me. This is not a good thing.

Adam spends his time cataloguing Van Statten’s artefacts, which automatically puts him in a lesser position to Rose, who’s experiencing the wonders of the universe in a rather better way than he is. She’s also better than him morally; Adam is willingly working for someone who’s more than a bit dodgy and doesn’t seem too concerned about the Dalek being tortured. But Rose is horrified, sympathising with the Dalek. They have a bit of a chat, and then Rose puts her hand on its dome. Oops. This is the sort of psychological Dalek cleverness we haven’t seen since the days of David Whitaker. I like it.

Even better, the Dalek then goes on to demonstrate exactly how cool it is, using its sucker to kill its former torturer Simmons (so that’s what they’re for!), downloading the whole Internet, and turning its mid-section right round to shoot behind it. And right through this the gun makes the same sound it used top in the ‘80s. This Dalek is pretty damn impressive. If I didn’t know better I’d suspect they were going all out to show just how scary a single Dalek is just so they can really freak us out by showing hordes upon hordes of them at the end of the season. Of course, it probably won’t happen.

We get the obligatory stairs scene, of course; it may not be doing anything Remembrance of the Daleks hasn’t already done, but it’s no less cool for that. And I loved the cold inhuman efficiency of the Dalek activating the sprinkler system and simply electrocuting everyone. This is Dalek behaviour circa The Daleks’ Master Plan.

The Dalek conversation with the Doctor is just as good, getting to the heart of the Daleks and the Doctor’s relationship with them. Without orders the Dalek doesn’t know what to do, so it simply intends to revert to its default behaviour and just kill everyone. But the Doctor’s outburst (“Why don’t you just die?”) raises some uncomfortable parallels.

Rose ends up trapped behind the closing door with the Dalek, seemingly doomed. This has particular resonance after Jackie demanded of the Doctor last episode whether her daughter was safe. Naturally, the Doctor takes this out on Van Statten, a total git who’s entirely deserving of the abuse, but the terrible guilt he feels is obvious. There’s quite a lot going on between this scene between Van Statten and Goddard, too, as power gradually drains away from the one to the other. Van Statten’s authority suddenly means nothing.

Of course Rose is alive, and has “contaminated” the Dalek with her humanity, not something which would be welcome to an absolute racial supremacist. And once we, the audience, know that, we get a bit of comic relief with the Doctor (“Broken. Broken. Hairdryer.”) And then the Dalek goes sunbathing. What else?

The ending is most satisfying indeed. Rose forces the Doctor to face what his survivor’s guilt has done to him as he’s the one pointing the gun at the Dalek, not vice versa. But then, on the other hand, Rose is made to be complicit in the Dalek’s suicide. In other news, Van Statten gets his comeuppance as Goddard takes over and wipes his memory. Finally, the obligatory Time War conversation finishes things off, as the Doctor confirms to Rose that he’s definitely the last of his people as it “feels like there’s no one.”



Well, that’s just got to be another 5/5, which means this season so far is doing really rather well. I’ll score a story less that 5/5 at some point, honest!