The Zero Room #8- Trouble and Strife

This time, we've got two episodes juggled out of their original place in the Series 6 running order, and yet still perfectly suitable for the third/fourth episode region of the series. It'll get moodier later on, but for now we have the historical rompage of The Curse of the Black Spot and the gorgeously challenging romance of The Doctor's Wife.

Reviews will contain spoilers, so if you haven't seen the episode yet, toddle over to the iPlayer, or watch BBC Three at some point in the next century's worth of repeats.

Seemingly timed to coincide with the new release of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, The Curse of the Black Spot begins with the TARDIS picking up a distress call from a troubled ship. As it turns out, it's an actual sea-faring boaty kind of ship towards the end of the 17th century. Captain Avery has just taken the biggest pirate haul in history and now his ship is stranded in the middle of a still ocean, beset by an enchanting and deadly siren.

Occasionally, Doctor Who does a "just for fun" kind of episode. Last year, it was The Vampires of Venice, which also seemed to be timed around the release of Eclipse, sort of. Having rewatched the fifth series recently, I found Toby Whithouse's episode to be much better than I had remembered. Perhaps The Curse of the Black Spot will similarly appreciate in value, but as of right now, I can't imagine revisiting the episode unless it's part of a marathon viewing.

It comes down to the fact that it all feels a little rush-released. In 77 episodes of "New Who" up to this point, there hasn't been so glaring a narrative omission as the one that takes place here. Lee Ross is a relatively minor character, as the Boatswain, but he literally disappears. We see him wounded, and the black spot swells on his palm, but we cut away before he's taken. The Doctor and Avery don't ask where he went, Amy and Rory don't tell them what happened- he just drops out of the plot and reappears at the happy ending.

It shouldn't bother me, but it kind of ruins the whole episode for me. I can take as read that he was snaffled by the Siren for healing purposes off-screen, but that none of the characters ever acknowledge it just feels out of character. Not only for the Doctor, Amy and Rory, but for the programme, which is usually on the ball with even the most fantastical stories. Throw in the fact that it's probably one of the slower episodes of Doctor Who since the series returned, and the joins are all too clear in the process between bumping this one up from ninth to third in the running order and getting it to the screen.

It's not all bad news- it never is in Doctor Who. Hugh Bonneville is happy to be here, even if he seems a little bit harmless for an apparently bloodthirsty pirate. The idea of the Siren is a sound one, and Lily Cole is threatening and bewitching enough that it's convincing to see the Doctor having to second-guess his theories about what she's up to. But when she eventually turns out to be benevolent, the twist doesn't have enough momentum to land with more than a thud. Merlin director Jeremy Webb will be coming back to helm the final episode of Series 6 in the Autumn, and I can't say I'm looking forward to it.

The Curse of the Black Spot brings too little to the table for it to properly stand out. It's by far the most forgettable episode of Matt Smith's run so far, but it's no fault of the actors. In particular, Arthur Darvill does well despite Rory getting yet another death scene. He's dying every single week now- there's just no impact anymore. It's not a poorly conceived episode, but it seems to be have been turned around too quickly. It's textbook MOR Who, but it strives to be a proper swashbuckling adventure. In that much, it goes the way of the first two Pirates of the Caribbean sequels- it's disappointing, but not a total loss. 

The Doctor's Wife was bumped from the episode 3 slot and, before that, from the back end of last year's series. So Neil Gaiman's long-awaited script for the series has the Doctor receive a message that suggests there might be Time Lords, and friendly ones at that, hiding out in a bubble universe. The moment the TARDIS touches down in an impossible scrapyard, it's enfolded in a trap that brings the Doctor face to face with his oldest travelling companion, while Amy and Rory are imperilled in her corridors.

I think it's fair to say that most Doctor Who fans are unabashedly conservative in their outlook on the series, especially those fans who've been watching it since the original run. Those fans waited 16 long years, wanting a new TV series, but more importantly, most of them wanted the series to be the same as it always was. Doctor Who occasionally has to make change, especially in the new era. And Gaiman has given us an episode that could change the way you look at the last 40+ years of adventures in time and space.

Of course, the title is about as apt as The Doctor's Daughter was, being an inventive episode that was hamstrung by its high concept. Figuratively speaking, Matt Smith's Doctor and Suranne Jones, as the human manifestation of his TARDIS, are like an old married couple, hence the TARDIS being The Doctor's Wife. Some will argue that the relationship between the pilot and the motor has always been more complex than we see here, but with such grand performances and writing, I'm finding it hard to complain.

Only Smith and Jones can properly carry off the flirty dynamic between the Doctor and Idris, who's carrying the TARDIS' matrix, or personality if you will, around in her head. It was enjoyable in Day of the Moon a couple of weeks ago with the Doctor and River Song, and Smith sparks off of Jones nicely too. Jones channels Helena Bonham Carter, on whom your mileage may vary, again, as a TARDIS bamboozled by her suddenly acquired humanity. Ever since Ian Chesterton touched the door in An Unearthly Child, she's always been described as alive, and now she gets a chance to bite back after being blamed for the Doctor's directional difficulties for decades.

Inside the police box, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill get a proper subplot for a change, and it's one that only indulges in the minimal amount of Rory being killed off. There must be some kind of quota. Never mind though, because it gives them room to breathe without being upstaged by the Doctor, and they're terrorised in their expedition through the corridors by House, voiced by an oddly incognito Michael Sheen. The episode strikes a nice balance between the Doctor and his companions, but the emotional core remains apparent throughout.

As a self-contained episode, it's a very welcome reprieve from the narrative building antics of Day of the Moon, with a very small cast and some very memorable performances. Even Adrian Shiller and Elizabeth Berrington are better on-screen than their characters as written. Richard Clarke, who previously directed the sublime Gridlock, delivers another grand-scale episode that isn't a series opener, a ratings-grabber or a finale. And better, the budget put into this long anticipated story is all up there on-screen, even with the presence of an Ood and the RTD-era console room being visible cost-cutting measures.

The Doctor's Wife canonises a fan interpretation of the Doctor's relationship with the TARDIS- that the latter chose the former and not the other way around- and it would be a shame if that's not acknowledged after the credits roll. Even if the events of this episode are only mentioned one more time, it would be better than entirely forgetting this episode in the more complicated arcing story of the series. It should please the fans with its copious Who literacy, and intrigue the new audience in equal measure- please, Neil Gaiman, may we have another?

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We'll return to The Zero Room in three weeks' time with reviews of the remaining episodes before the series takes a break for the summer. Until then, why not share your comments below?

The next episode of Doctor Who, The Rebel Flesh, airs on BBC One and BBC HD on Saturday 21st May at 6.45pm.

The Zero Room #7- Blimey Wimey

It's been a while since we've been here, but I've since found that Steven Moffat's timey-wimey storytelling is slightly less impressive to me than it used to be. Here's a belated review of the festive special A Christmas Carol and a more current review of the opening two-parter, The Impossible Astronaut and Day of the Moon, (to be referred to henceforth by the latter name, to save time.)

Reviews will contain spoilers, so if you haven't seen the episode yet, toddle over to the iPlayer, or watch BBC Three at some point in the next century's worth of repeats.

A Christmas Carol is sort of what it says on the tin, really. Naturally, there's a Doctor Who twist on it all, so we find the Doctor as he takes on the challenge of saving an old miser's soul on Christmas Eve. Kazran Sardick is a grumpy old bastard who holds the lives of over 4000 people, including Amy and Rory, in his hands as they crash towards the ground in a doomed space liner. Not bothering to wait for ghosts, the Doctor visits Kazran at different points in his own life to try and nurture him into a better person.

Going into this one, I actually had low expectations. Even with the standard brilliance of Doctor Who on its side, I was continuously concerned that this was going to be another retread of Charles Dickens' story, as already told by the Muppets, Blackadder, Catherine Tate, Scrooged, etc. etc. etc. Luckily, Moffat manages to find mileage in the timeless concept by injecting a big chunk of wibbly wobbly timey wimey formula.

Once again, it's a companion-lite episode, which leads me to think that Matt Smith is, in fact, tireless. The guy hasn't had a break since taking on the role, even without mentioning all of the spin-off media to which he's lent his talents. He's still on top form here, ticking all the boxes that epitomise the Doctor, and his Doctor in particular. He's righteously angry with Michael Gambon's Kazran, but like a bonkers older relative with his younger incarnations.

Kazran, who's now one of the most travelled of the Doctor's companions, despite having only appeared in this story, makes for an interesting Scrooge-like character. You can argue that the Doctor merely changes the facts to suit himself, and Gambon irately does just that in the later parts of the episode, but it's still an interesting and romantic look into human nature. There's only so much the Doctor can fix, and he arguably makes things worse at first, but you'll allow this episode an awful lot of licence because it's so accomplished in its festivity.

For one thing, there aren't many other TV shows in which an opera singer serenading a flying shark would so easily pass by. Even in Doctor Who, it would be a stretch if you weren't swept up in the romance of it all. In its own ways, it supersedes the two immediately previous Christmas specials by being neither disposable (The Next Doctor) or high drama (The End of Time). Like the best of Doctor Who, this one finds drama in... well, weird places.

A more dynamic and original title could have helped, but like I said, A Christmas Carol does what it says on the tin. It joins the ranks of Voyage of the Damned as an infinitely rewatchable bit of festive Doctor Who, and deploys the timey wimey stuff to create humour as much as pathos. It's the perfect underline for a great first year from Steven Moffat and Matt Smith, who continues to cement his position as one of the best Doctors we've ever had while constantly building on his portrayal.

After an absence in the previous episode, Amy and Rory have taken a leave of absence from the TARDIS at the beginning of Day of the Moon's first part. But then they're summoned to America, where they see an older version of the Doctor murdered by an astronaut. When a more contemporaneous version of the Doctor turns up, Amy, Rory and River Song keep his demise as a secret from him as they're dragged into another adventure in 1969. President Richard Nixon has been getting regular phone calls from a scared little girl...

Hm. This one's going to be a case of picking apart the good stuff from the ongoing arc. As a much more blunt counterpoint to last year's prelude, with the Doctor and young Amelia inspecting the crack in her wall in The Eleventh Hour, the opening of this one sets up a death fakeout. Yeah, I said "fakeout". Even the target audience must now be unconvinced by all of the deaths that happen and then don't happen under Moffat's run. There's some enjoyment to be got out of wondering how he'll get out of it, but it can't be said that part one of this story was much fun with all of the foreboding and enigma building going on.

Without any exaggeration, this series is starting to remind me of Lost. That random woman with the eye-patch who Amy sees was where the comparison occurred to me, but it's all over this opening two-parter like a rash. It's the first time a new series has opened on a two-parter, and it would have been preferable to be thrown into the action right away. If Moffat has answers to all of the questions raised here, I'm hoping he gets to some of them at the mid-series finale rather than dragging them out to episode 13 in the autumn.

It's a shame that I've begun to feel this way about all of the temporal gubbins, because here in particular, it distracts from the really good stuff. Moffat partially answers one of the previous series' going concerns by introducing the Silence, the race responsible for blowing up the TARDIS in the finale. If Moffat's first series was lacking in something, it was new monsters, so it's brilliant to see these creepy monsters so well conceived and realised by the production team.

There's also some gorgeous work by Toby Haynes, the best director on the previous series, whose work looks even more cinematic for the location shoots carried out in America than they did on sets somewhere in Cardiff in his previous episodes. Mark Sheppard, as Canton, proves to be one of those companion-who-never-was types with a pitch perfect performance. And after six episodes, River Song finally becomes more likable- Alex Kingston and Matt Smith really sell it this time, and their flirting shows the blossoming of some actual affection between them rather than some vague and non-committal prophecies.

Day of the Moon ultimately falters because of the expectation of episodes to come. While the good stuff here is really good, from the Nixon-related comedy to the very creepy central conceit, it's constantly obscured by scattershot enigmas. Hopefully it's all going to make sense in the end, because it sure as hell doesn't right now. This is a potentially great story that's running on about two-thirds capacity because of the timey-wimey stuff, so there's plenty of scope for rewatchability once the series is over. The trouble is, I'd preferred to have enjoyed it as much the first time around.

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We'll return to The Zero Room in two weeks' time with reviews of episodes three and four. Until then, why not share your comments below? Yes, I did see that little girl regenerating. No, it didn't shock me. That should tell you something, I think.

The next episode of Doctor Who, The Curse of the Black Spot, airs on BBC One and BBC HD on Saturday 7th May at 6.15pm.

Halloween at Writers' Block North East

I'm in the unusual position of having reviewed all of last week's new releases last week, with the exception of The Kids Are All Right (come back on Wednesday or go over to Den of Geek around about... now), so it's as good a time as any to talk about the work of Writers' Block North East.

For Halloween last night, they held their monthly(ish) film discussion group, and in a makeshift and very off-hand kind of way, I programmed the double bill horror screening. I rave about films on here and how they need to be better, so it obviously had to be something from the paragon of great horror movies. Did I pair Onibaba and The Haunting? Or go for a John Carpenter twofer with The Thing and Halloween? Fuck no, I plumped for Trick 'r' Treat and Burning Bright.

First off, let me catch you up. Writers' Block North East is a group for creative stuff and a drop-in centre for all manner of writers, centred in Middlesbrough and organised by the wonderful team of Laura Degnan and James Harris. I say "wonderful team" because in the week that Let Me In comes out, I'm aware of my own presumption that people who criticise actual creative work on the Internet have to be invited into dwellings where actual constructive work is occurring, and they're kind enough to allow me on the premises.

More than that, they got my first produced script all finished when I won their competition to write a Potter Puppet Pals style parody, complete with actual puppets. Doctor Who and the Inky Doom is currently in need of a follow-up, in which I'll surely manage to avoid sticking my head and/or shoulder in the back of the shot when operating the Matt Smith puppet. While work continues on the sequel, Inky Doom is presented on YouTube below, for your enjoyment.



So, to the business of Halloween. Having neglected to turn up in costume, I was a bit taken aback by the full-on face paint stand operated by John Noble, one of our resident actors/directors/ridiculously creative people. Someone else brought a carved pumpkin. I brought a perennial Halloween film that's only three years old, and a film where a tiger chases an autistic kid around a house.

So first off, we watched Trick 'r Treat. For those unfamiliar, it's the Bryan Singer-produced anthology horror homage, in which four interlinking stories unfold over one Halloween night. Crossing between stories is Sam, ostensibly a little kid dressed up as a scarecrow, but actually a vicious little bastard who doesn't like it when people don't get into the spirit of the evening.

I saw this film earlier this year, and decided right then that I would watch it every Halloween. It may not have the iconic status of those films I mentioned earlier on, but it perfectly captures the spirit of the event with a grim sense of humour and a surprisingly high youth mortality rate. The acting is great, with particularly great performances by the newly-cuckolded Lizard from the Spider-Man sequels, Dylan Baker, and a deliciously cantankerous turn by Brian Cox.

The reaction from the Writers' Block patrons was pretty positive. It's a great start to any Halloween marathon, so naturally, we moved onto the combo-breaking killer animal flick Burning Bright. This one plays out a little like one of those Lemony Snicket books, not only in the central idea of an unscrupulous guardian trying to kill off orphans, but in how the blurb connects disparate elements like a tiger, a hurricane, a scholarship and a cameo by Meat Loaf as a tiger dealer.

It's obviously got a higher budget than the usual direct-to-DVD schlock with this kind of premise. They bothered to wrangle real tigers rather than attempt hokey CGI. While it's cheesy, and slow to get moving even at a mere 70 minutes in length, it eventually got the desired reaction out of the audience. They laughed their arses off. All the same, it's extremely well-intentioned. Its cast, aside from Mr. Loaf, are mostly on the cusp of renown for acting in other, more prestigious films, but none of them are snidey or ironic in their presence. In particular, Briana Evigan proves a tough as nails horror heroine- who would have expected it of that one lass from Step Up?

The direct-to-DVD double bill went down a treat, and I'm sure I'll blog about other film discussion groups at Writers' Block as and when they occur- I think the next one is Christmas-themed, so even though I'm not programming it, I'm lobbying for The Muppet Christmas Carol and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Don't hold your breath for that festive twofer though- it's time for me to be quiet and write something new for the Doctor and Amy Pond...

Writers' Block North East is currently situated in the We Are Open space on Albert Road, Middlesbrough- add them on Facebook and Twitter. Trick 'r Treat and Burning Bright are both currently available on DVD.

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

The Zero Room #6- The Many Faces of Matt Smith

Whether you're calling it Series One, Series 5 or Series Fnarg (Steven Moffat's suggestion and my own personal favourite), it's difficult not to applaud Doctor Who for recapturing and developing the formula over the course of the last thirteen weeks or so.

Well I was going to do a big retrospective on the series, but I think it's pretty comprehensively covered in my reviews of the series on this very blog, so I'll settle for filling the requisite Wednesday slot with some funny faces pulled by the Eleventh Doctor.

The obvious indomitable force through Series Fnarg is Matt Smith's Doctor. Week after week I haven't thought of a single bad thing to say about him. With some of the awkwardness that always seemed false when Tennant's Doctor was rattling around the cosmos, Smith is shaping up to be one of the best Doctors ever, if he keeps giving us a different expression every week.

So why make a blog post that is dangerously close to making this place a cheese wheel? Well, the tabloids have ran out of news for the summer again, so they've decided to write about how Smith is being axed due to low ratings. Besides ratings being non-stories in and of themselves, overnights don't even particularly matter anymore.

They love that word, don't they? "Axed." What a pointy and pernicious thing the tabloid press is. No one ever leaves or is fired, they have to be "axed". Presumably in all that coverage of serial killers they occasionally splatter the front pages with, there's someone tutting that axe murdering isn't practical anymore, and that axes instead have to be applied to things like Fred Elliot deciding to take time off from Coronation Street.

The coverage of such obsolete stories on this here blog only brings me closer and closer to writing irrelevant stuff. But hey, you're enjoying the funny faces right? To come clean, my puppet spoof odyssey for Writer's Block North East, Doctor Who and the Inky Doom, still hasn't made it onto YouTube, so the planned entry for today fell through.

If anyone feels short-changed, come back on Friday when I promise there'll be worthwhile content. And sometime thereafter for the planned puppet blog. Otherwise, just be assured that Johnny Depp isn't going to play the Doctor in a film, unless you're watching Sleepy Hollow and decide to think creatively. It's Matt Smith all the way- now, everybody do the dance...