Doctor Who: Davies/Moffat as Blair/Brown
Doctor Who post alert: all spoilers corralled at the end in case you haven’t seen last night’s finale.
Like many a Harry’s Place reader I’m now entering six months of cold turkey before the next new episode of Doctor Who, a programme which leaves reality miserably wanting and has at last given people like me something to talk to their nieces and nephews about.
After this year’s Christmas special – a rich and timeless family tradition stretching all the way back to 2005 – there will be four extended Whos in 2009 and then nothing… nothing until 2010, whereupon Steven The Empty Child/Blink Moffat takes over as show-runner from Russell T Davies. The tale of Moffat/Davies can easily be projected as a geeks’ version of Brown/Blair, a symbolic battle for the soul of the show albeit without the rancour or the dodgy deals in North London restaurants. There’s never been any real doubt that “dour Scot” Moffat, who made his Who name with chillers featuring gas-mask-faced children and killer statues and actually isn’t remotely dour at all, would take over from the fluffier, more emotionally-centred Davies. Russell is scripting next year’s quartet of specials but nevertheless last night’s episode felt like his lap of honour.
Some denizens of the spodosphere – and not a few national newspaper columnists – are now exultant. Under Moffat they see the prospect of a return to the muscular values of Old Who: sombre plotlines, alien planets, hard sci fi, an austere vision of time and space. Davies’s angle on the show they have derided as inherently suspect, spin-driven populism possessed by the incubus of celebrity culture. Some of the Who hardcore were as irate about Davies’s tales of Rose Tyler and her family on the Powell Estate as certain old patrician Socialists who liked the idea of the working classes as long as they didn’t have to go anywhere near them (by the way, I’ve always thought that Beatrice Webb’s line about wanting to marry only Sidney’s head would have made a great Doctor Who, a bit like ‘The Brain Of Morbius’). As for Davies introducing a bit of modern, rainbow coalition, Big Tent polysexuality in the form of Captain Jack; as for the notion that the Doctor might have had girlfriends in the past; and as for Catherine Tate above all, the hardest-core’s response was best summed up as “Ew! Gross!”
I think the fundamentalist Wholigans will be disappointed. Moffat is far too savvy a writer to simply churn out 13 variants on “dark and scary” for 2010. After all, he cut his teeth on Press Gang and Coupling, two shows noted for their lack of carnivorous shadow-creatures or homicidal clockwork robots. His most recent story, Silence In The Library/Forest Of The Dead, was a big old emotional weepie bound in the hard covers of gothic horror. I also suspect that Davies’s gift to Doctor Who won’t be fully recognised for some time to come. Whatever his mis-steps – that bloody awful one with Peter Kaye in it springs to mind– Davies turned Doctor Who back into a show where absolutely anything could happen and, in doing so, rebuilt it into an unbeatable winning machine. What was a risky little punt for BBC1 four years ago is now absolutely central to the channel’s identity – politically as well as creatively (The Guardian has already tried to get an “Is Doctor Who over?” ball rolling a few times, without success). All this means that the show must now deal with a problem of incumbency that it’s never had to face before.
Doctor Who has never been as successful as it is now. Last night’s episode was watched by 9.4 million people and will probably turn out to be the most-watched show of the week in the UK, a position Doctor Who has never reached before. The toy shop shelves have never groaned with Doctor Who action figures before. Nobody has ever cared who the Executive Producer was before – now I’ll bet that more people are bothered about this than care about the identity of the Education Secretary. When Tom Baker took over from Jon Pertwee in 1974, the matter of succession was an amusing news item for a day or so. When David Tennant hangs up his Jarvis Cocker outfit it will be a bigger deal than a new Pope, and certainly a bigger deal than the last change of Prime Minister. Does it matter as much? Of course not. But it’ll certainly feel like it does, as a pop culture big bang does every few years. At the moment Doctor Who is experiencing its Elvis Year, its 1966 World Cup Final, its (What’s The Story) Morning Glory, its 1997 General Election, and the lesson of those moments of euphoria is that they don’t last. But what better vehicle to break that rule than a show where absolutely anything can happen?
Full disclosure: A fantastic, if a bit mad, blogger called Lawrence Miles says some of the above, only better, in a weekly blog here.
HERE BE SPOILERS:
Last night’s episode? Not as good as the insanely wonderful The Stolen Earth. Turning the regeneration into “Ha, only kidding!” was a bit of a swizz – how amazing would it have been to change the lead in mid-story, with the box-fresh 11th Doctor staggering about like a newborn gazelle and trying to save the Universe at the same time? On the other hand, best Davros since Genesis Of The Daleks and a real sense of crisis. Half-Time-Lady Donna was a little annoying but her fate (mind-wipe, back to being an airheaded temp) was actually very moving. Giving Billie her own Doctor to honour and obey seemed to undermine the heartbreaking separation at the end of Series Two but I guess that’s what the audience wanted. A good, but not great, way to go out.
Comments
| 6 July, 2008, 10:16 am |
I lost interest when Eccleston left, can’t stand to watch Tennant’s breathless goofyness. I’m told the statue one was very good though.
| 7 July, 2008, 2:09 am |
Its not a patch on B5 though.
| 7 July, 2008, 4:26 am |
Or BB9.
| 7 July, 2008, 5:01 am |
I thought Dalek Khan was a (not ironic) nod to the shabby, flimsy, cheap-ass sets of the 70’s/80’s which made the series at the time painful to watch. My recollections of the classic Dr Who series are folks running down corridors (they were always running down corridors) and these corridors looked like a stiff breeze would knock them over…
And given his name, I was very much hoping for a “Khaaaaaaan!!!” moment from, well, anybody. Ah, Captain Kirk. They don’t make them like you any more *sniff*.
| 7 July, 2008, 5:38 am |
I liked the heads-up to this article in the other section of the site, but people who now read only HP Arts might not see it so I think you should issue a heads-up to that here. Don’t forget to credit it appropriately: HAT TIP: us
| 7 July, 2008, 5:40 am |
Bang right Andrew on what they did to Rose. It was pathetic. I didn’t find what happened to Donna moving though. It was a bit too “One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest” for me. Davies just can’t kil characters. He strands them on beaches in Norway with ersatz Doctors or leaves them inane in Chiswick.
| 7 July, 2008, 5:54 am |
Davies just can’t kil characters
Bringing back ‘dead’ characters is a weak weak weak plot device that infects SF television horribly (cf Heroes, where the entire cast seems to die and come back the next episode). It’s just a lazy way of avoiding having to think up new characters. And it’s patronising to the audience too. The buzz of recognition is swiftly replaced by the dullness of repetition.
| 7 July, 2008, 8:11 am |
I think the most important thing about the revamped Doctor Who is that it’s production is the closest thing UK Television has to the “Showrunner” system used in the US.
Russel T Davies is (was) both Head Writer and Executive Producer. Creative control and decision making begins and ends with the people who write the scripts.
This is the system that has made US television drama unparalelled in excellence over the last 15 years. To the extent where the best writing, acting and directing IN THE WORLD is found in 13 part television series made by US cable channels.
And it shows. Doctor Who is excellently written (for what it is) and, more importantly, backed up by lead actors and directors who make the whole greater than the sum of its parts.
The UK hasn’t seen this since World Productions (This Life, The Cops etc…) almost ten years ago. And the only things that come close are short running hits made by Independents who can operate outside the usual system (The Office, etc…).
| 7 July, 2008, 6:22 pm |
tests time mashine
| 9 July, 2008, 3:10 pm |
Lawrence Miles is Dalek Khan…
| 10 July, 2008, 12:27 pm |
Doh! I’ve missed the opportunity to have this conversation. Loz is a mentalist, but he really really loves Dr Who and all that it could be. He’s right about story arcs I think, and that’s why “Babylon 5 is a big pile of shit!” All becomes about the revelations and foreshadowing.
I quite liked Donna’s fate. Sort of Ancient Greek damnation style. A We can remember it for you wholesale twist to the disappointing reset-switch endings that dominate the series recently. I hate the “but it was all a dream” cop-outs we keep getting…
Lawrence’s crazed rants in the wilderness are starting to sound more and more reasonable as time goes on. I think that’s partly him, but mainly the series.
Implement item 18 Grand Moff! This should be the first Harry’s Place Arts Section campaign!
| 10 July, 2008, 1:08 pm |
[...] – past, present and future A couple of comments on Harry’s article about Who. First, all Whovians owe Davies a massive debt of gratitude, as Andrew Harrison says. But I’m not [...]
| 12 July, 2008, 8:57 am |
It’s no BSG though is it Andrew?
Anyway, I’m glad Moffat is taking over, he has been most certainly responsible for the best episiodes in the new run (in my humble) and also managed to get round Tennet being appalling in comparison to Ecclestone by simply not including him (as much) in Blink.
Maybe he’ll bring back the excellent (and achingly cute) Sally Sparrow as an assistant to the Doctor and give me a decent reason to watch beyond the show being a methadone like substitute for the Sci-Fi heroin I rather ashamedly crave.
Still, I thought Gordon Brown might have been a positive shot in the arm so that shows my skills of prediction.
| 14 July, 2008, 4:09 am |
Jon d said, “I lost interest when Eccleston left, can’t stand to watch Tennant’s breathless goofyness.”
I wish Ecclestone had stayed longer so that he could have made more of the part. In contrast, I think Tennant chose the right time to leave.
Nevertheless, my impression from watching the last four series is that Ecclestone didn’t give the part his complete commitment (perhaps fearing it was beneath him) while Tennant, goofiness notwithstanding, took it more seriously. Perhaps consequently, I prefer Tennant’s Doctor to Ecclestone’s.
As for Moffat, it seems he wrote my favourite episodes so I have high expectations of his first series in charge.
| 14 July, 2008, 4:11 am |
Sorry, that should be “Eccleston”.
| 21 July, 2008, 3:01 am |
up
foto and video sex
| 30 July, 2008, 1:30 pm |
Sigh. Another thread that shrivels up even though it’s far away from the light. I’d be interested in a discussion about the way forward for the series, perhaps using Loz Miles agenda for discussion as an er… agenda… for… er…. the discussion.
Some of the comments in this thread are a bit autopilot and don’t really address the issues. Like the continual fetishisation of story-arcs. Just look at bonekickers for where that gets you. If you’re not careful then every story just has the arc bolted on at the end. Unless you postulate deep supernatural causation (which modern Who has continued to do) that makes the whole thing a massive, massive coincidence.
Still, you all carry on discussing things that are far less important. Blimey, if Loz is Dalek Caan, who does that make me?
| 4 August, 2008, 6:01 pm |
I, too, am looking forward to Moffat’s tenure. “The EMpty Child” and “The Dr Dances” are my 2 favorite episodes of all - the dialogue absolutely sparkled! (”Rose- I”m trying to resonate concrete.”) And still scary and entertainign all at the same time.
Obviously, this also implies that for me, Ecclestone is THE Dr. He brought a gravitas and a presence that Tennant can’t match - you could really buy into him being The ONcoming Storm.”
That said, Tennant’s antic and hyper performance has made the part his own, in a different way.
My dream is for the Dr to re-generate backt o Ecclstrpone in 2010!!
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