Penny Dreadful: Verbis Diablo

"Is this what it's like to go mad? Your darkest fears made manifest before your eyes?"

More of the same superbly stylish horror-tinged Victoriana, then, as the focus shifts away from Mrs Poole and her witch underlings' psychic war against Vanessa to the careful simmering of other incipient plotlines.

First we have Caliban and his bride, named Lily by Frankenstein, as her creator shows her how to use language. Yet there are hints that she is becoming much closer to her creator than to her "betrothed". A surprising emphasis is placed on Sir Malcolm introducing Vanessa to the experience of charity work he performs to soothe his soul, but the main function of this scene is probably to engineer a meeting, and an interesting philosophical chat, between Caliban and Vanessa. The two do not agree on religion, but they seem to find a mutual affection and understanding.

Dorian Gray still pines for Vanessa, but is accosted by a prostitute, Veronique, who is bold enough to tell him that she fancies the pants off him, or Victorian words to that effect. Upon visiting her at her brother (she needs a firm hand, apparently!), of course, he is both unsurprised and unbothered to see that she is transgender, as the Victorians would certainly not have said, and genitally male.

There is also an erotic frisson between Sir Malcolm and Mrs Poole, mich though he may insist that, although separated, he is married and thus unavailable: the principled Victorian gentleman.

Mrs Poole is, of course, extremely nasty, calling Vanessa the c word and blackmailing poor Mr Lyle, who has the misfortune of being born at a bad time to be gay. Mr Lyke is extremely likeable, both for his endearing mannerisms in flirting with Ethan  ("American! I am undone!") and for his knowledge of the eponymous Verbis Diablo, a demonic and little-known tongue which Vanessa has been speaking. But the history is ominous; the writer of the sole extant text was burned at the stake.

We end with some quite disturbing scenes as Mrs Poole, surrounded by some extremely freaky dolls, proceeds to vivisect a recently-kidnapped baby, which isn't very nice but is a triumph of direction on the part of James Hawes. This is a most effectively freaky scene.

And Mrs Poole has a freaky dummy of Vanessa...

Penny Dreadful: Fresh Hell

"What would Dr Frankenstein be without his creature?"

So, at last the second season starts on Sky Atlantic. It looks as though last season's big bad is going to be witches, but in the meantime we have character arcs to set up for the new season, lushly and beautifully shot by James Hawes as always.

We add to the feminine theme of witches with a riff on Bride of Frankenstein as Billie Piper returns to play said monster, while her prospective mate finds another grimly Victorian job with poor conditions, this time working in a waxworks exhibit, a la Madame Tussaud's, except much more influence by lurid crimes and, well, penny dreadfuls. His boss, I'm pleased to see, is played by the excellent David Haig. 

Elsewhere, Ethan dithers about whether or not to return to Anerica while Vanessa remains her delightfully weird, brooding self. He tells her of his blackouts, after which he wakes to much blood. Much will come of this, especially as an inspector from the Yard is investigating the deaths of his pursuers from the end of last season.

Meanwhile, it's made clear to Sir Malcolm by his poor, bereaved wife that, after presiding over the deaths of two children, their marriage is henceforth to be eked out as a cold, artificial she'll with the two of them living apart. His surrogate daughter, Vanessa, is now his only family. No wonder she runs into his arms, able to confide in no one else. The witches, it seems, led by the mysterious Mistress Kali, are after her soul...

A very promising opening, if not quite up to the heights of last season's opener. I'm looking forward to the rest of the season.

Penny Dreadful: Season One, Episode 8 (Grand Guignol)

"Why do you think I want to be saved?"

Well, that was eventful. Quite the season finale, with many threads coming to an end, but it's pleasing to see that the episode opens as many doors as it closes. We end with the prospect of Frankenstein using Brona's body to make a bride for Caliban (that'll go well), with Ethan shown to be some sort of werewolf, able to rip his pursuers to shreds (is this why he left America, leaving tears and "a whole mess of blood"?), and with Vanessa contemplating the long, hard road of exorcism. There's plenty to fuel a second series.

In the meantime, though, there's a first season to wrap up. Obviously, there's the climactic hunt for Mina, ending in the revelation that Mina is loyal towards "the master" and the shock of Sir Malcolm shooting his daughter. Still, the hints continue that he sees Vanessa as his daughter.

It's fun to see Vanessa dumping Dorian in the same arbour where he first properly seduced her. And yet, symbolically, the flower is no longer in bloom. We, like Vanessa, are amused Dorian Gray is made to feel rejection for the first time.

Brona's death is heartbreaking, although Frankenstein's smothering her is somewhat unexpected. He's complex; on the side of the goodies yet capable of being so callous. And yet this callousness is done out of a paternal affection for Caliban.

Calibans tale is the most tragic; once menacing, he is reduced to a pathetic figure. He misinterprets Maud's kindness in making up his face and visiting her room, and is stunned by her rejection, forcibly kissing her and burning his bridges with the theatre. Maud may have sympathised with him, but she also looked down on him. He can never be attractive to a woman... except perhaps one like himself?

This is a superb finale, but it's fantastic to see how much time is spent setting up the next season.

Doctor Who: New Earth

“New, new Doctor!”

It looks as though we start with a continuity error- there’s no snow and everyone has changed clothes. Then again, they could just have waited a day or two. It was Christmas Day, after all.

The TARDIS lands in the year 5,000,0000,023, on the planet New Earth in the M87 Galaxy. Yes, that’s right- an alien planet! An alien planet crammed with reference points to Earth, but another world nonetheless. But the Doctor and Rose have been spotted- by one of those spider things from The End of the World…

The TARDISeers haven’t arrived here by accident, though. There’s a message for the Doctor, and it’s from yon nearby hospital. Said hospital has no shops, disappointingly, but on the other hand it has lots of cat nurses, who remind me very much of the Cheetah People from Survival.

Our heroes are separated whilst travelling downwards, and while the Doctor encounters the petrified Duke of Manhattan and his rather uptight underling Frau Clovis, Rose comes face to face with Cassandra, now reduced to skulking underground with her genetically engineered slave Chip and some footage of herself back when she looked like Zoe Wanamaker. Not for long, though, as she quickly and rather rudely steals Rose’s body.

The Doctor, meanwhile, encounters another mysterious face from the past: the Face of Boe. The Face may be dying but there’s still no reason why he can’t be annoyingly enigmatic. Apparently before he dies he’s going to impart one last secret to “the lonely god”. Gosh, I wonder who that could be.

All is not well in the hospital, it seems; the cat nurses seem to have concealed hordes of lab rats-cum-lepers in a secret underground chamber, and they’re effecting their miracle cures by simply transferring their patients’ diseases into these human cattle. This almost, but not quite, seems to have something to say on medical ethics and animal experimentation and that. You get the impression that RTD feels he ought to vaguely allude to this sort of theme but at the end of the day it’s just not a particular political hobby horse of his.

We get a number of Tennant firsts around this point. The first kiss between him and Rose, sort of; the first “I’m so sorry” of which more below; and the first example of his occasional cosmic arrogance with his “If you want to take it to a higher authority, there isn’t one.” You can almost smell the foreboding.

It all kicks off as the Doctor realises something’s up with Rose, forcing Cassandra to accelerate her plans. The leper people are soon released, and pandemonium ensues. I’m reminded of Terminus. And also minded to give a rather similar score to the one I gave for that story, unfortunately.

Cassandra’s sudden, shocked, change of heart after seeing inside the leper's head actually works quite well, but unfortunately the conclusion of the Doctor just randomly mixing lots of medicines together is, well, awful. I’m not generally in the habit of uttering the phrases “deus ex machine” and “Russell T. Davies” in the same sentence, but for this story I’m almost tempted.

The Face of Boe is suddenly cured, too, and he’s going to carry on being enigmatic for a while longer- works as a sort of teaser, I suppose. Cassandra’s story ends satisfyingly, too, in the arms of her past self. But for the first time in the “New Series” there’s something lacking here. After awarding every episode of last season a 5/5 I feel almost cruel doing this, but New Earth only gets a 3/5.

Oh, and here’s the start of a new feature…




The David Tennant I’m-So-Sorry-ometer

The Christmas Invasion: 0
New Earth: 1 (“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”)

Doctor Who: The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances

The Empty Child



“Not sure if it’s Marxism in action or a West End musical…”

A very brief pre-titles sequence this time; it’s a mauve alert situation, and the Doctor and Rose are following an alien artifact that’s heading for central London. Red alerts, apparently, are camp.

It’s a month later when the TARDIS arrives. It’s London, it’s night, and the dialogue sparkles. My Marathon has reached Steven Moffat’s first script, and the combination of this and The End of Time means I’m getting rather excited about the upcoming new era. But back to The Empty Child.

What’s wonderful about Steven Moffat scripts is that not only do his plots fit together like clockwork but even witty dialogue is paid off with related further witty dialogue later. Here it’s Rose lamenting that the Doctor hasn’t got enough “Spock”, what with being unable to scan for alien tech and everything. And of course it’s revealed that this is the middle of the Blitz right after the Doctor has asked a roomful of people if anything has fallen from the sky recently.

Rose, for reasons of her own, ends up hanging to a barrage balloon in mid-air in the middle of an air raid while wearing a Union Flag t-shirt. As you do. I’m surprised to see that the backdrop is a little too obviously a matte painting in some shots, and this isn’t the first time that an effect from this season has convinced a little less than I remember it doing at the time, and especially in comparison to more recent episodes. Still, that’s no real criticism; this season pretty much saw the BBC learning how to do sci-fi all over again.

The Doctor, meanwhile, is puzzled to find the TARDIS phone ringing, which is particularly odd as it’s not even a real phone. He also finds strange goings-on in a nearby family home of which the man, Mr Lloyd, is played by that bloke from the video for Basement Jaxx’s Where’s Your Head At?. A bunch of street urchins enter the house and start eating the abandoned meal, all under the supervision of the mysterious Nancy. Even more strange, just as Rose slips from the rope she is coincidentally caught in a tractor beam- definitely not 1940s technology. Naturally, she’s told to switch off her mobile phone as it interferes with the equipment.

The ship belongs to the mysterious Captain Jack Harkness, and it’s fascinating to see the character as he appears here given all the baggage he’s acquired since, much as I shouldn’t be thinking of any of that while wearing my Marathon hat. And the psychic paper flirting is great. Jack has a Chula warship, and he’s offering to sell it to Rose, who he believes to be a “Time Agent”. Naturally he tells Rose this as they sip champagne atop an invisible spaceship during an air raid just by Big Ben, to the sounds of Glenn Miller. On hearing that the Doctor’s around somewhere, he… does a scan for alien tech. Finally, a professional!” purrs Rose. This is great.

Rather cleverly, the little boy with a gas mask who’s been popping up throughout the episode, seemingly harmlessly, is revealed as the big threat in a scene which is actually quite scary. Everyone’s scared of it, it can control phones, radios and the like, and the Doctor’s alone in the house while it asks to be let in and to see its Mummy…

The Doctor finds Nancy again, and after a rather splendid little speech about Britain and Hitler, he’s told to go and see “The Doctor”- Dr Constantine, played by Richard Wilson- a surprisingly small part for possibly the most famous guest star to appear so far this series. Constantine’s patients all have exactly the same wounds- “Physical injuries as plague,”- and they’re the same wounds as the little boy. They’re all alive, extremely creepy, and wanting their Mummy. And worse, Constantine becomes one of them in a horrifying scene. Rose and Jack arrive just in time for the cliffhanger. Jack admits that the artefact they were chasing was put there by him as bait as part of an attempted con; it’s a Chula ambulance. But all that can wait; the patients are all advancing…



The Doctor Dances



“When he’s stressed he likes to insult species.”

It’s a simple and elegant resolution to the cliffhanger, and also the perfect set-up to the Doctor’s admission that “Those would have been terrible last words!” Then we can just sit back and enjoy an episode crammed with quickfire witticisms fired between the Doctor, Rose and Captain Jack. Who, incidentally, is an ex-Time Agent from the 51st Century. I wonder how he got to 1941- Zygma technology, perhaps?

It seems that all this is Jack’s fault; he brought the Chula ambulance here, and everything that’s happened seems to stem from its arrival. Still, he has a squareness gun, which is pretty cool, although the Doctor disagrees. They’re still in danger, though; there’s a fantastic moment where everyone realises the tape has run out and it is in fact the gas mask boy talking. The only worrying thing it that this seems to be a recurring trick of Moffat’s; he did it in the excellent Jekyll as well. I hope we won’t be seeing it again any time soon.

It’s rather amusing now to recall that up until 2005 I (and a lot of people, I suspect) sort of casually assumed the Doctor must be pretty much asexual as far as I thought of such things at all. So it’s fascinating to see the conversation between the Doctor and Rose about, ahem, “dancing”. “You just assume I don’t dance,” complains the Doctor, both to Rose and to the viewer. “Well, I’ve got the moves but I wouldn’t want to boast.” Well, well, well…

They’re teleported to Jack’s ship, where he explains more of his background; he was indeed once a Time Agent, but left once he realise his employers had wiped two years’ worth of memories, something which has remained unresolved ever since, oddly. Oh, and he’s very much the 51st century guy, very flexible with “dancing”. Perhaps he once “danced” with Mr Sin, you never know.

There’s a wonderful scene between Rose and Nancy as they repair the barbed wire; Nancy has no problem accepting that the Doctor and Rose have a time machine, but she can’t accept the possibility that perhaps the war may not be so hopeless after all and she may actually have a future.

The ending is very neat indeed; the nanogenes from the Chula ambulance found the child, Nancy’s son, and has been using him as ac template for what it believes humans should look like. Nancy’s genes are able to teach them otherwise, though, and it’s quite moving to see the Doctor’s joy that “Everybody lives!” Not only that, but restored to perfect health, even if that means an entire leg growing back, which leads to the best line of the story, and perhaps the series, courtesy of Dr Constantine: “Well, there is a war on. Is it possible you miscounted?”

The Doctor and Rose leave, with the Doctor is a great mood, encouraging everyone to keep fighting, beat Hitler, and “Don’t forget the Welfare State.” Jack, on the other hand, is facing certain death, having deliberately sacrificed himself to stop the Chula bomb and make amends. He faces his certain death with dignity and champagne, but the Doctor and Rose ensure he isn’t going to die quite yet. It seems he might be living just a little bit longer…

As per usual for this season, that was fab. 5/5. Again.