Humans: Episode 1

"Those robots are the Singularity!"

It's prime time hard sci-if on Channel 4 courtesy of this remake of the Swedish original, with inevitable name checks for Asimov and Capek. Wisely, there's nothing other than the synths themselves (creepily lifelike robots) to indicate that this isn't the present day; excessive futurism would alienate us from a parable which has a lot to say about our lives; yes, we have robots (sort of) and the Singularity looms, but Capek's "robots", in the original Czech, meant "serfs". There are issues of class here, not only in the "human" rights of any sentient robot slaves, but in the lazy decadence that looms for their owners.

Narratively speaking, all this requires an Everyman (Tom Goodman-Hill's easygoing Joe), an everywoman (Karherine Parkinson's Laura, thus far the main character, with more time for work than family. She is, in effect, the primary audience POV character and, interestingly, is troubled by synths. There are also three, er, every children: Vanessa is the rebellious genius, Sophie is there to be young, cute and to illustrate certain parenting duties, and Toby thus far seems to be the token boy and little else. They're all well-rounded and likeable enough to get away with the fact that they are, essentially, archetypes. They are also our way in to the drama, with Joe purchasing a synth, Anita, to do the housework so that he and Laura can spend time together.

Anita- a standout superb performance from Gemma Chan, is at once creepy and captivating, and the family's getting used to her neatly gets the exposition out of the way. The language of IT is used to discuss then, with "primary users" and "secondary users". They are treated and thought of like household appliances, but wasn't the same true of Roman slaves?

There's no suggestion, at this point, that she might be sentient, but there are already uncomfortable issues about having a robot "slave"; as Matilda puts it, why should she spend years training to be a brain surgeon when a synth can do it so much better? The human race is being threatened with uselessness.

But that's not all: an early flashback sequence with the mysterious Leo (Colin "Merlin" Morgan) establishes that a select few synths, all mates of his, have achieved sentience, complete with feelings. We observe one of them ("Fred")being caught, in rather upsetting scenes, all the more redolent for the fact that Fred, a recaptured escaped slave, is portrayed by a black actor. Then there is Niska, a synth who works on a brothel and insists on feeling every degrading moment. Towards the end the camera lingers uncomfortably as she is taken from behind, silent.

Oh, and the flashback establishes that Anita was one of these sentiments, until she was kidnapped five weeks ago. We know, unlike the Hawkinses(?), that she is sentient, although this does not rob her closing comment about the moon of its impact; not only does she have a soul, but there is poetry in it.

We meet an old man, the irascible and American inventor Dr George Millican (William Hurt), who has become attached to his rather endearing synth, Obi, which helps him with his failing memory. It seems this synth is past its sell-by date, though, and must be consigned to the scrap heap like an old, broken fridge.

There are a lot of promising strands here in what already looks like one of the dramatic highlights of the year. Humans is already outstanding telly.

Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead

“I don’t believe it. Guns don’t work.”

Well, that was great. I really enjoyed that; a good swashbuckling romp. I’m glad we get a story like this right now, as the ending suggests we won’t be seeing another such light-hearted romp for quite some time.

I love the beginning; we have a cat burglar. As there are no cats available she proceeds to steal a Priceless Shiny Artefact from a museum in the coolest possible way, and then turns out to be played by Michelle Ryan. I love this sequence; it’s brilliantly shot. The many short glimpses of various police officers before Christina gets on the bus really make us feel that there’s no escape.

But there is, of course; the bus is off to another planet. Gareth Roberts has co-written this with RTD, and this whole scenario reminds me of the Eight Twelves from his excellent (though slightly metalhead-ist) Virgin New Adventures novel, The Highest Science. The whole visual aesthetic of a London bus in the (genuine) desert is most effective, too. I don’t think I buy the oft-stated view that they could have filmed this closer to home than Dubai and still had a desert which looked as good (this is the first story to have been shot in HD, I believe), but I’m enough of a wishy-washy liberal to wish it had been filmed somewhere with a better human rights record than the UAE.

There’s a bit of misdirection early on as we’re made to expect everyone to turn on the Doctor as per Midnight (Humans on buses, always blaming me!”), but that’s not how things turn out. Instead, Christina takes charge and shows herself to have a natural air of authority but also to be a pretty good leader. This scene is also good practical scripting, as Christina rather efficiently gets everyone to introduce themselves. That’s one of RTD’s many admirable qualities; making the exposition double as character development.

The most interesting of the others is Carmen, a psychic, and a genuine one, as the Doctor’s reaction makes clear. Already she can hear “voices of the dead”, and her premonitions are strategically placed throughout the story to build up the tension.

Back on Earth, UNIT have been called in, led by Captain Magambo from Turn Left. The best thing about them is the Sergeant Osgood-like Malcolm, who may be nothing but an absent minded professor stereotype but is brilliantly played by Lee Evans. Any you have to love anybody who name checks Bernard Quatermass.

We’re shown some friendly insect creatures, Tritovores (they remind me a bit of the Rills from Galaxy Four all that time ago), who are rather obviously there just to serve the plot, although this fact is subtly but deliberately played for laughs in a slightly fourth-wall breaking way. Before we discover they’re friendly, though, Christina gets a great and Tom-ish line “Ah, I’ll remember that as I’m being slowly tortured. At least I’m bleeding on the floor of a really well-designed spaceship.” Nice one! The Tritovores believe the Doctor (just there to serve the plot, so of course they do) and allow the Doctor to do one of the things he loves best; exposition. It seems that cloud approaching from the background consists of billions of large manta rays with metal exoskeletons, which despoil planet after planet through wormhole after wormhole. It’s a terrifying threat, an unstoppable plague of locusts, and it’s heading first for our heroes and then for Earth.

The scene where Christina retrieves the crystal is fascinating and nuanced. There’s a quasi-political class subtext here (“The aristocracy survives for a reason.”) which is more notable now, in Cameron’s Britain, than it was at the time. But I find myself not really minding it, although perhaps I should. Do I have something of the English forelock-tugging gene / disease in spite of myself, or is it just that Christina is so cool? Because she is, and she goes some way to redeeming herself for her criminal lifestyle here with here bravery and potential self-sacrifice. Besides, she and the Doctor are both thieves, with a parallel being explicitly being drawn between her threat of King Athelstan’s cup and the Doctor’s theft of the TARDIS.

As soon as the McGuffin has been retrieved, the Tritovores become superfluous to the plot, and as their sole function in life is to serve the plot, they are promptly killed. Hilariously, the dialogue even pretty much states this out loud at this point. I so love little fourth-wall breaking jokes of this kind.

Christina gives up her treasure (another little moment of redemption?) and we have a flying bus. This is really very cool indeed, as is every moment of the final few minutes, from the Doctor’s meeting with Malcolm to the mutual respect between the Doctor and Magambo, who was trying to kill him moments earlier by closing the wormhole but, crucially, was doing it for the right reasons. This is a slightly cuddlier UNIT than we’ve known in the recent past, although the Doctor’s unease with the modern organisation remains.

I seem to be making a habit, these days, of saying I’m no longer bothered by something which annoyed me on original transmission. This time it’s the Doctor allowing Christina to get away; on second viewing I feel on balance that she’s been genuinely magnificent and redeemed herself enough to earn it. The kiss is cool too. But once again the Doctor is adamant that he travels alone. This can’t bode well.

Oh yes, and there’s Carmen’s prediction. I’ve had enough of things returning through the darkness- how many times is it now? But we’re told again that the Doctor’s song is ending. And that “He will knock four times.” Brr.

Magnificent. 5/5.

Doctor Who: The Girl in the Fireplace

“What’s a horse doing on a spaceship?”

“Mickey, what’s pre-revolutionary France doing on a spaceship? Get a little perspective!”

Steven Moffat’s back, and it’s timey-wimeyness right from the start. It’s Versailles, it’s the eighteenth century, then the credits roll and it’s Moffat’s very own 51st century. But we’ll be coming back to this scene in a rather clever way. Let’s not beat about the bush; I might as well say from the start that this is a blatant 5/5, and it’s going right into my chart at number three. It manages to be simultaneously a genuinely affecting romance, an ingenious treatment of time travel and an awesomely plotted tale that not only works like clockwork but is probably doing a metatextual nod to the story’s monster by doing so. Simply awesome.

The TARDISeers walk out on to the spaceship, to Mickey’s obvious delight. But something is odd; the engine’s running, and is clearly powering something, yet the ship is still, with not a crew member to be seen. But even stranger is the genuine eighteenth century French fireplace in the wall, behind which is a little girl called Reinette who thinks it’s 1727.

The Doctor spins round, and he is indeed in Reinette’s room, albeit a few months later. We then get the only flaw I can see in the story; the clock’s broken, so what’s doing the ticking? This is fine, even brilliant in itself, but it’s too similar to the scene with the tape recorder in The Doctor Dances. Seeing Moffat repeat himself like this is worrying. Still, aside from this the episode, and indeed the scene, is pretty much faultless. The fact that the monster is underneath Reinette’s bed is brilliant, as is what it is- an eighteenth century style automaton! This is exciting stuff. I love the no nonsense way the Moff sets out to scare the kids here.

The Doctor returns through the fireplace a few minutes later, and my, hasn’t Reinette grown! She indicates she’s rather pleased to see him but has to leave. The Doctor is then made aware that he’s just snogged Madame de Pompadour.

Back on the ship, there’s a certain amount of weirdness- a horse, a camera containing a human eye, and a human heart attached to machinery, for starters. There are windows to various events in Reinette’s life scattered throughout the ship; it appears to be stalking her. Once again, an awesomely brilliant concept.

The Doctor partially explains things, slightly yuckily; the ship is damaged and is in need of parts. It’s used parts of the bodies of the now ex-crew, but for some reason it now wants to use Reinette’s brain as its central computer. Blimey.

In a development of last week’s themes, Mickey gives Rose a bit of a ribbing now that the Doctor again seems to have a new lady friend. And there’s also been talk of Cleopatra (“He called her Cleo”). Interestingly, though, when I first watched this I had the impression that, brilliant though both this story and its predecessor undoubtedly are, the character arcs were poorly done as the Doctor’s relationship with Reinette seemed to indicate a betrayal of Rose. Interestingly, I no longer feel that’s the case. The Doctor loves Rose, but essentially in a platonic way, whereas the reverse isn’t necessarily true, although it’s not necessarily false either.

Reinette shows how fab she is by reading the Doctor’s mind as he read hers, and says some very interesting things about his loneliness. And we get the return of our favourite semi-euphemism as she asks the Doctor to “dance” with her. The camera then cuts away. Some time has passed.

The Doctor, feigning rat-arsedness, rather easily rescues Rose and Mickey from certain death at the hands of the clockwork robots, pausing only to note that “bananas are good”. I love this script.

It’s now clear than when Reinette is 37, the same age as the ship, she will be “ready” for the honour of being beheaded. Rose has the task of explaining this to Reinette. Reinette proves to be just a bit more eloquent. It’s a wonderful scene, turning the tables on our expectations of the “primitive” person from the past.

The Doctor rescues Reinette- naturally in the most show-offy way possible- but is trapped, and is now destined to take the slow path with her. Except that Reinette is rather clever and has kept the fireplace.

The ending is truly heartbreaking. Even I cried a bit, dammit. And the final shot explains everything. Having watched this I’m getting really quite excited about the future of Doctor Who under Steven Moffat. 5/5, like I said.