You had better sign those, they’re the ones paying your salary.
Jimmy Stewart 1968 on the set of Bandalero to Raquel Welsh when he heard her complain about signing autographs.
In an interview released this week Russell T Davies, who was briefly the great fan hope for the return of the Doctor Who franchise to what the fans loved for decades made it clear to all that this is not the case.
Russell T Davies has said that new Doctor Who episodes will upset die-hard fans of the science fiction franchise.
The Welsh screenwriter and television producer, 60, discussed the new release, which will be the centrepiece of the BBC’s Christmas Day line-up.
It would seem rather odd that Davies who was instrumental in the revival of the series that I’ve enjoyed for four decades and, like many other fans passed on that enjoyment to our children to be something in common as a family even as we’ve grown older, would be so callus as to spit in our faces and throw us away. But last night as I slept the explanation finally came to me, the truth of what Doctor Who is. It’s a rather ironic explanation that can be summed up in a just a few seconds below the fold:
Plot: The Doctor and Donna are lost at a spaceship at the end of the universe. The Tardis has skedaddled and they are only left with each other a robot and each other and each other but who is who?
Writing: It’s a tough call because it’s such a different type of episode. It’s both deep and loose with various clues all over the place. Also given the nature of the episode we don’t know how much is necessary to set up the final special, how much is just for the sake of now and how much is just for fun. I think it’s the type of episode you need to watch 2 or 3 times to really judge and thanks to the nature of the specials you might not be able to judge it standing alone till you see number three but one thing is certain, it’s head and shoulders above the last one and more in keeping with the hopes of fans. Too bad they couldn’t have led with this one but I guess you needed Donna on board and functional to do so.
Acting: With the exception of the very start and the very end it’s pretty much Tate and Tennant and they carry it very well. I’m likely biased because I’m fond of him but Bernard Cribbins appearance at the end is the icing on the cake.
Best Moment: The penultimate appearance of Wilfred Mott (like it could be anything else)
Worst Moment: The whole “War Song” Debate and why would British Choir students be singing the US Airforce Hymn anyways?
Oh Brother Moment: The “why is Mrs. Bean funny?” business. The answer should be obvious to a brit: “because it reminds you of Mr. Bean which is hilarious.” How do you not get that?
The What’s going on? Moment(s): Why is Tennant 2.0 constantly crashing the TARDIS into things. Is that basically what the revised Tennant does when flying the TARDIS these days, just crash?
The Ah HA moment: The HADS. You see a lot of it in Big Finish Doctor Who but not so much of it on TV.
The “I Don’t Give a Fig about Newton” moment: Again the Newton stuff might all be a one off gag although the “Mavity” stuff suggests otherwise. Newton is mentioned a bit in the original series and a bit in Big Finish. (For the best of the batch see David Warner as Sir Isaac in the 30 min 5th Doctor and Nyssa story “Summer” in the Circular Time CD. You can buy it here for under $4 )
The Elephant in the Room Part 2: Is it just me or was there a solid attempt to cement the new canon during one of those exchanges?
Bottom Line: Again this isn’t the type of story I’m generally into and to some degree is was CGI driven, possibly to make the writing easier but it generally works as straight Sci-fi, as a psychological thriller and as a deep dive into the characters. It has an unfair advantage as it not only so much better than the one before it and by default so much better than anything of the last few years and it’s slightly hurt by references to said episode but that’s just talking about established events and thus not something that should effect this as it’s own story which it is. But even if The Star Beast and the Jodi Whitaker era didn’t exist this story would stand as a solid if not spectacular Tennant Era story.
4 1/2 stars, but I reserve the right to go as high as 4 3/4 or down to 4 1/4 after watching it a few more times and that’s the thing that gives this a real advantage. Jacqueline King‘s performance not withstand I have absolutely no interest in watching The Star Beast a 2nd time. This story however is very re-watchable in fact it almost demands it.
Ranking in the current season (counting the children in need special)
Destination Skaro
The Wild Blue Yonder
The Star Beast
I wasn’t ranking my top 10 of an era during the Tennant Years as quite a few of them predated the blog but if you take my top 10 of the Capaldi era which is the last list I made from 2017 (via the wayback machine)
And consider the bottom episode on the list: (reviewed via wayback here) it doesn’t make this list, although in fairness it’s again not the type of episode I usually go for.
Update: It just hit me after I published that The other than corrupting the English language the Doctor doesn’t actually save anyone or have any real effect on events except to almost screw things up. If he never lands there the ship explodes and the bad guys are defeated, it just happens without Donna & he almost dying in the process.
It’s been a long time since I reviewed a Doctor Who Episode and most of those reviews are only found on the wayback machine as I’ve not bothered to retrieve them from the old blog so we’ll make this short and to the point:
Plot: The cute and cuddly Meep fleeing pursuit has fallen right into the hands of the Temple/Noble family. What danger does he bring, besides the Doctor?
Writing: Russell T Davies adapts this story from a 4th Doctor Comic Book story (You can read that here). It had actually been already adapted into a Big Finish audio four years ago by Allen Barnes staring Tom Baker (you can buy that here). Being familiar with both my take might be different than others without that familiarity. Given the limitations of squeezing’s the story down to 60 minutes of TV rather than the much less expensive visuals from the comics or from the imagination generated by the audio AND given the complexities of fitting this into a newly returned David Tennant he does an admirable job. There are a lot of balls in the air and he pretty much keeps them in said air. There is one elephant in the room that needs to be discussed but we’ll deal with that in a bit.
Acting: After four years of limbo David Tennant shows how it’s done again and Catherine Tate has not lost either a comic or a dramatic step. Nor has either lost a tiny bit of the chemistry they exhibited from day 1. The supporting cast does a good job as a whole but Jacqueline King REALLY shines and threatens to steal every scene she is in. I think Miriam Margoles overdid it as Beep but again you have the limits of squeezing a long story into a shorter time frame so the character couldn’t develop so it might not have been a reflection on her.
Best moment: The Trial great stuff very doctory.
Worst moment: The coffee business, seriously he couldn’t come up with better than that? Lame.
Funniest Moment: Donna’s blaming the Doctor for giving the money way
Ah HA Moment: Donna’s realization that she gave away the fortune to be like the Doctor harkened to Rory’s moment in Vampires of Venice where he notes people take stupid risks to impress him.
Oh Brother moment: The Meep pronouns business, was tempted to shut it off right there.
The elephant in the room: I didn’t mind the transgender child nor even how it was handled in the dynamics of the family. It seemed for a moment like Davies was reverting to his 2005-2012 form keeping making his “social agenda” points in the background while concentrating on story but alas no this is 2023 and not 2005 and like the Jew hating anti-Semitic Muslims of England who would not have dreamed of being so open about their “death to Israel, death to Jews” back then Russell Davies apparently feels freed from having to hide is social agenda and thus makes not just Donna having a child the basis for saving day but having a “non-binary” child being it. In fact the whole “you would have gotten this if you were a woman speech” was the type of in your face preaching that Davies would never have tried decades ago. Alas that means no change from the last three years except we get to be preached to with a higher quality writing and a better cast
I strongly suspected this would be the case and thus was not so much disgusted as disappointed.
Bottom line: I really thing The Star Beast suffered from the format. If this has been made as a two part story from the Tennant Era I think Davies would have done a better job with it and given more time to develop characters from the Noble family to Beep itself that would have at least diluted the preaching. An original story would have been a better choice for the reboot but taking it as it was my judgement is this:
If you grade the episode based on the last five years of the series it’s clearly better than anything fans have seen since the last episode of the Capaldi years and many will react accordingly but alas I’ve been following the series for since the I was in high school (graduated in 1981) so I’m grading it on based on actual Doctor Who. It’s pretty much a lower mid range Tennant episode say Unicorn and the Wasp or 42.
You know type you watch once or grab a scene to repeat online but not the one you’re dying to repeat or seek out. Only the return of Tennant & Tate make it memorable.
3 3/4 stars of five but I’d bet real money if Davies had another 30-40 minutes to play with it would have reached 4 or maybe even 4 1/2.
Bonus review Children in Need Doctor Who special Destination: Skaro: (takes place before the Star Beast) As it’s only 5 minutes long I’ll include it in its entirety at the end:
Plot: You all know that the Daleks were the Mark 4 Travel Machines, but what ever happened to the Mark 3?:
Writing: Davies mini episode is as close as a primer to how to write a Doctor Who episode as it gets. If there is a flaw in this mini episode I don’t see it.
Acting: Julian Bleach hits it out of the Park as Davros and plays the straight man to perfection. Mawaan Rizwan was hilarious and David Tennant brings back his Doctor in style. Again as good as it gets.
Best Moment: The look on Mr Castavillian (Rizwan’s) face when Davros re-enters the room and sees the Dalek.
Worst Moment: I really don’t get the liking of “exterminate” as a phrase
Ah HA moment: The “Canons are rupturing” is a playful homage to the fans pissed of at Chibnall redoing the entire canon of the show.
WTF moment: The tip of the multi claw adaptable thing should not pierce the “wood” of the TARDIS shell
Hmmm moment: It’s plain that the Tardis interior redesign revealed in the new show (kind of meh) has not taken place yet from the glimpses we see.
Bottom line: Five Stars, Worth watching again and again and it doesn’t get any less entertaining the 17th time around.
UPDATE: Being a sane and rational man that this episode was set before Davros’ accident that made him into the character we know to cut down on the costs involved in the makeup etc for the Children in need special.
And then I saw this video from the Critical Drinker which had a clip from Russell T Davies saying that this was in fact a Davros redesign:
“There is a problem with the Davros of old in that he’s a wheelchair users who is evil and I had problems with that. “
A journey, indeed it is. The Kinks are celebrating their 60th anniversary.
A big part of the revelry is the release, on BMG records of two double-CD or vinyl anthologies, the Journey Part 1, which was released in March, and the Journey Part 2, which was issued last Friday.
The Kinks emerged from North London and a year later they were at the forefront of the second pack of the British Invasion–or the beat groups, if you are reading this in the UK. Among those early hits were the power chord classics “You Really Got Me,” “All Day and All of the Night,” and “Till the End of the Day.” The Journey Part 1 kicks off with first two, The Journey Part 2 starts with the third one.
Looking at the compilations from the vinyl version, each side is represented by a theme, which I just couldn’t make sense of, so let’s just move on.
Each cut was selected by the Kinks–the surviving members are Ray Davies, rhythm guitarist and principal songwriter, his younger brother Dave, the band’s lead guitarist and occasional songwriter, and drummer Mick Avory. Among the many hits on the Journey, you’ll also encounter some rare tracks and alternative recordings.
Both are collections are essential collections for rock listeners with eclectic taste, and more importantly, a those with a strong sense of intelligence.
If you only have a bit of time and you want to know which compilation is best, then go with Part 1. A crucial reason is that amazingly, there are no songs from my choice as the Kinks’ second-best album,Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire), on it. You’ll find “Australia” and “Shangri- La” on Part 1. Of the Kinks often maligned 1970s”theatrical” period, the best of that bunch isSchoolboys in Disgrace.Part 1 has songs from it, Part 2 does not.
The second collection delves surprisingly heavy into the Preservation Part 2 album, which even many Kinks fans dislike. Preservation Part 1 contributes a song to the Journey Part 1. Although through the flaws, I am a fan of both. Critics hated them, although the stage presentation of Preservation was better received by them. Preservation tells a civil war between a womanizing real estate developer-turned politician Mr. Flash (liberals will see him as Donald Trump, conservatives as Bill Clinton), who is challenged by the seemingly morally righteous Commander Black, a Jerry Falwell Senior-type character.
If you are British, you can think of Preservation as a 20th-century replay of the English Civil War, when King Charles I and his cavaliers battled Oliver Cromwell and his Puritans.
The Journey Part 2, includes some of the best tracks from Preservation Part 2 including a previously unreleased version of “Money Talks,” along with “He’s Evil,” and “Artificial Man.” Sadly, one of the worst songs from the second Preservation, “Scrapheap City,” which is flatly sung, literally, by Maryanne Price, is also on the Journey Part 2.
What were the Kinks thinking on that one?
While the Journey Part 1 has no live tracks, Part 2 does, three live cuts recorded in 1975 at the New Victoria Theatre in London, “Everybody’s a Star (Starmaker) one of only two good songs from the loathsome Soap Operaalbum, “Slum Kids,” a solid Preservation outtake, and another song–not one of the goods ones–from Soap Opera, “(A) Face in the Crowd.”
On the flipside, the other good song from Soap Opera, the 1930s-style “Holiday Romance,” follows the live tracks. You can think of “Holiday Romance” as the Kinks’ answer to the Beatles’ “Honey Pie.”
If you’re a Kinks fan–or of you think you might become one–then here’s a song for you, “I’m Not Like Everybody Else,” the B-Side of their hit “Sunny Afternoon.” The first track is on the Journey Part 1. The A-Side is on Part 2.
Is “Lola,” perhaps the best-known Kinks song besides their power chord nuggets, included on the Journey? Yes, it’s on Part 2.
One more bit of bad news–the Journey ends abruptly. There is no talk of a Part 3, and there are no songs from the Kinks post-theatrical era on Part 1 and 2. Some of those stellar albums omitted in these collections include Sleepwalker, Low Budget, Misfits, and Give the People What They Want. What’s the heck is with that? Contractual disputes with record labels?
Back to the Journey: Even with one collection being a bit better than the other, both compilations contain plenty of pleasing gems. Back-to-back, they are ideal road trip albums, a great complement to any journey, either cross town, cross country, or as a companion to your life’s journey.
God Save the Kinks!
John Ruberry, who saw the Kinks live twice in Champaign, Illinois in the 1980s, regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.
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