Thanks to the fundamental interconnectedness of all things, I get to see the new episodes of Doctor Who the same day they air in Britain. Yes, I have that power. With great power comes great responsibility; I consider it my responsibility, my solemn duty, to tell all of you people exactly what I think of it, so that you can think just the same.
It's good.
There. I'm glad I had a chance to share that with you.
But seriously, folks...
The second episode, 'The End of the World', was a vast improvement on the first. The third episode, 'The Unquiet Dead', was in turn a vast improvement on that. It's very possible that next week's episode, 'Dalek', might be better still. We live in exciting times.
I enjoyed 'The End of the World' because it took an ordinary contemporary character and threw her completely out of her element: out of ordinary life, into a far future almost devoid of humans, where her very planet itself is about to come to an end. I liked it because it told the audience that Pepsi and reality television and shops and menial jobs and all these horrid crushing soul-sapping and above all trivial and banal things with which our poor lives are packed fundamentally do not matter. That's a message I can get behind. The world, or the universe, or the cosmos, or life, or whatever you like to call the Big Everything, is so much bigger and more marvellous than everyday life would lead you to believe. Carl Sagan knew that, and he ran around with a bong and a plastic spaceship and gave the world Cosmos. Russell Davies seems to know it too, and he gave the world a story about a girl from the absolute ass-end of boredom who suddenly finds herself with an all-access pass to an entire universe she never realised existed.
It's almost Gnostic, really.
I loved 'The Unquiet Dead' for the sheer style of the thing. It's an honestly beautiful piece of television; the opening sequence in particular just makes me go all wobbly. The segue into the theme music...Magnificent. The episode managed to be funny and creepy at the same time, and reinforced the same liberating message: that we are not just trapped into our cycle of food and sleep and shit and pain and death, that there is more to life than waiting for it to end, that there are fantastic things worth learning and worth doing if only we're willing to look beyond the boundaries we set ourselves. And zombies menace Charles Dickens.
'The End of the World' and 'The Unquiet Dead' are, I contend, genuinely good television, as well as being good Doctor Who. I wouldn't be ashamed to show them to a non-fan; in fact, I have. My roommate just eats it up. So much so that he's gone on to consume episodes of the 'classic' series as well. And he's what you'd call a pretty highbrow chap. I'll have him starting flamewars over UNIT dating before summertime, you mark my words.
The fourth episode, 'Aliens of London', did not quite live up, I thought, to the standards of its predecessors. There were some good bits in it. Like the space pig. I happen to like the space pig. A pig in a space suit sounds like some kind of horrible embarassing joke. One that isn't particularly funny. And that's exactly what it is, in the story. Like the farting. Unlike the farting, the space pig only happened once. The farting and farting and farting got a bit...well. As you'd expect, probably. Still, the Slitheen were nice beasties, with their dead baby faces, very Terry Gilliam I thought. Most of what went wrong with 'Aliens of London' is down, I think, to the directing or the editing. It never managed to build up any sense of tension. The cliffhanger hung on far too long.
The sequel, 'World War III', was an improvement. The plot didn't make all that much sense, and the resolution via Internet hackery was, I confess, silly. But the plot's hardly the point, is it? Lots of monsters and running around, and Penelope Wilton's character suddenly starts to work, and the Doctor spouts defiance in the very face of villainy. And the Iraq references. God, the Iraq bits just made my weekend. They weren't what you'd call subtle, at all. You could hardly call it satire. It was blunt as a proverbial spoon. The aliens are trying to provoke a human strike against an imaginary threat they claim has 'massive weapons of destruction' capable of being launched in 45 seconds.
"Do you think they'll believe him?""Well, you did last time."
Really, that moment made the whole thing. Subtle as a brick to the balls, I know, but the Iraq war was such a complete and unmitigated travesty that subtlety would frankly be wasted. You've no idea how wonderful it was for me, trapped in this bloodthirsty snakepit they call America, to hear someone on television finally admit that without flinching. Loud and proud for all the world to hear!
That moment, and Penelope Wilton's character at the very end. Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North, a silly ordinary old woman rising up to do great things, infused with the awesome power of representative democracy. The heroes of the story are all ordinary people, not statesmen and generals. Not uniformed quasi-fascists as in Star Trek. Not even magical supergirls, as in Buffy. Just people. Even this new Doctor, when all is said and done, is just an ordinary guy (from another planet), an ordinary guy who slipped the bounds of stifling orthodoxy and humdrum routine and became something wonderful. This is the fundamental narrative: ordinary people becoming extraordinary, willing to lay down their lives for ordinary people and for the hope of something better.
It's about hope.
And next week, exterminating Americans. God, I'm so excited for 'Dalek'. So very very excited.
Posted by aloysius at April 24, 2005 11:49 PM | TrackBack |