On BBC4

BBC4 – it’s what the Third Doctor was normally watching (with a Tanqueray or two and some smoked salmon sandwiches) while the rest of Britain was tuning in to the latest thrilling instalment of The Passing Parade on a rather more downmarket channel. Sophisticated, y'see. It has an annual service budget of £53.3 million, and according to the BBC4 FAQ it shows:

...a wide variety of programmes, including drama, documentaries, music, international film, comedy and current affairs. BBC Four aims to offer an intelligent alternative to programmes on the mainstream TV channels.

The channel has played host to a smattering of Who-related content since its launch in March 2002. There was the Russell T Davies – Unscripted documentary which aired the Monday after the premier of The Unquiet Dead (penned by Mark Gatiss); ah, what thrilling times those were!

Then there was the three-part compilation of The Green Death shown as part of “1973 Week” in 2006, followed by a two-part version of The Daemons the following year. In April 2008, BBC4 celebrated the first broadcast of The Fires of Pompeii by showing three - count ‘em, three! - documentaries about volcanoes the same night.

And famously, David Tennant was working on BBC4’s live telecast of The Quatermass Experiment (Saturday 2 April 2005) when his casting as the Tenth Doctor became known. You all know the Jason Flemyng anecdote. Co-starring in that particular project was Mark Gatiss–

Ah yes, Mark Gatiss. Among his many achievements he’s now written three Doctor Who telly stories, and acted in a couple as well. These are but the cream of his DW credentials however, as the three-episode interview with one Anthony K McCail – hem hem – published in Doctor Who Magazine in 2003 makes clear. It was in the third of these (DWM #335, 15 October 2003) that he mentioned the following tantalising idea:

I thought how great it would be to do a drama about the creation of Doctor Who.

...my main thing was that it would be the story of William Hartnell, from getting the part to leaving the show...

Incidentally, you’ve got this fantastic story about how the team came together, the design of the Daleks... the first female producer... employing an Asian director in 1963... Fascinating things.

I started it with the end of The Tenth Planet, re-created in beautiful detail, and then just as Hartnell collapses to the floor, the camera pulls back, the lights come on, and we’re in the studio... And in the corner is a little shabbily-dressed man with black hair – making everyone laugh! And [director Derek] Martinus is trying to explain that they’re going to mix between Billy and Patrick Troughton. And he says ‘Bill?’... and he’s not there. The camera ambles across the room to the central column of the TARDIS, and it goes up and down, up and down... then the doors open, and we go back to 1963. Beautiful.

As Gatiss explained in the interview, it was not to be:

Anyway, the BBC, of course, said no. Fictionlab said no. BBC3 said no, ...there’s no money and there’s no real slot for it... so it’s gone away.

Over the years, I’ve occasionally wondered when BBC4 would get round to making this particular Gatiss dream come true. Despite the previous BBC knockbacks, it seemed perfect for them. Then I heard about the Coronation Street Drama (title tbc, as they say. But it better be Florizel Street):

The astonishing story behind the difficult birth of Britain's longest-running soap is revealed in this one off drama.

As Coronation Street reaches its 50th Anniversary, the drama will take viewers back to 1960. Tony Warren, played by David Dawson, was a writer with a dream of bringing to screen characters from the Salford he knew and loved – the tart with the heart, the snob, the harridan in a hair net.

The drama charts how Warren's vision made it to the screen against fierce opposition from his bosses. It's a story of boardroom battles and hopes dangled by threads.

I certainly hope the esteemed Gentleman is on the case – no doubt his involvement in forthcoming BBC hits Sherlock and The First Men In The Moon will bolster even further his already powerful bargaining position.

He’d better get a shift on though – I get the feeling that BBC4 Drama’s addiction to biopics is starting to get on the nation’s collective wick. The recent Lennon Naked, starring Who alumni Christopher Eccleston and Naoki Mori and their respective private bits, seems to have received pretty derisory reviews.

(It did however give us the SFX interview with Mori in which she announced:

I could spend hours [in] B&Q. Not only am I a computer geek at heart, I’m a bit of a DIY nut as well. I actually built my first vending machine at eight years old – that’s kind of sad, isn’t it? I just love DIY stores!

Quality quote, that.)

If the Origins-of-Doctor-Who drama ever gets off the ground, we’d hopefully see the man himself in a role. After all, Mr Gatiss has quite a rep for playing real folk, having already notched up Johnnie Cradock, Robert Louis Stevenson, Apsley Cherry-Garrard, Malcolm Mclaren, Bamber Gascoigne Louis Aragon, and of course Professor Cavor (what d’you mean, he’s not real?)

And if it’s a success, then in forty years time some young pup or pupess can dramatise this:

(All images are of course © the BBC and are used purely for illustrative purposes.)

On The Current Regulars

I will be posting a review of Season 31 (shut up, yes it is) shortly, once our colonial and former colonial cousins in Australia and the US have caught up. But aside from what I think of the first Moff season, one item must be addressed. And that is the performance of our regulars. Make no mistake, Matt Smith IS the Doctor. Regardless of my humble opinion, it seems clear that even those who have failed to warm to the Moff’s vision/scripts have been wholly enamoured of Smith’s performance as the Eleventh Incarnation.

He’s something special.

SFX recently requested Terrance Dicks-style descriptions of the incumbent. It proved difficult, but my entry read as follows:

A bow-tied, bow-legged old man with a teenager’s skin, chin and excitably floppy hair.

It’s curious. Eccleston’s 9 was clearly about establishing the role as a weighty one in the eyes of viewers and fellow actors. The Tennant Doctor that followed was seen by us fans as the rightful ascension of one of our own to the throne. The anecdote goes that when Sylvester McCoy became the Seventh Doctor, he attended an American convention and was immediately asked how he had felt upon landing on Peladon. McCoy, of course, hadn’t a clue. Tennant, of course, knew precisely how he’d felt. And we found that good.

Not Matt Smith. He didn’t grow up being the Doctor in the local quarry. He is an actor playing the Doctor. And, by golly, he’s thought about it. As he's pointed out, if you’re playing a 900-year-old alien, it doesn’t matter if you’re 28 or 55 (as Hartnell was). He’s approached the role as an actor, and even if he’s showing a Tom-esque tendency to let the character bleed into his off-screen demeanour, it’s his performance that demonstrates Win.

According to a recent interview, he went through a ‘what am I doing?!’ fluster at filming's start. He felt himself floundering, unsure of how to play this unique character. Crisis of confidence, on the phone to his Dad every evening in a panic, seeking reassurance.

Which was presumably given. I don’t know if Matt’s Dad has perused many Peter Davison interviews, but he’d find them familiar. Hopefully Mr Smith got the message through to his son that he was doing just fine. But, whatever, it’s clear that there was no need to worry. The first scenes filmed were the beach ones for The Time Of Angels. And if I didn’t know that, I’d have never guessed. He hit the ground stunning.

Karen Gillan has come in for some criticism. Apparently she’s wooden. Well, I can’t see it. But then I’m Scottish too; perhaps we’re all wooden. But seriously, as my good friend Sly Pangloss has pointed out, in 21st Century Who the companions that work best are those grounded (however tentatively) in reality. I love Rose. I love Donna. I’m even vaguely fond of the Lady Christina de Souza. They’re beautiful, but they’re beautiful cartoons.

It’s Martha and Amy that are most/almost real. It’s Martha and Amy that come closest to piercing the viewer’s heart, for they come closest to being Girls We Know (for those of us who Know Some Girls). It’s in Season 29 that Tennant really works – think of Gridlock. The Tenth Doctor is at his best when he is robbed of his arrogance, and what robs him of his arrogance is Freema Agyeman’s grounded performance. So kudos to Karen for following in those footsteps.

Finally, we have Arthur Darvill, performing as our current tin dog, Rory. He’s playing a stock Moff character, right enough – Larry Nightingale, Steve Taylor (smirk), Spike, Tom Jackman. But doesn’t he do it well? And hey, getting turned into a Auton seems to do wonders for one’s love life. Mickey the Idiot’s had two companions, and now Rory joins the plastic hotties. Way to go.

So thank you, you three. Whatever what one thinks of current Who, it would be diminished without you.

(All images © the BBC. From the Official Site.)

On Planet Of Fire - Special Edition

I’m all for these Special Editions that 2Entertain are slapping on their shiny DVDs at the moment, I must say. The The Curse of Fenric one was a triumph, the Battlefield one perhaps a necessity, and the Enlightenment one was made of sweet gorgeousness.

However, the Planet of Fire remix appears to be receiving something of a kicking, even being dissed in the Official Magazine. Well, having now consumed said product with my own eyeballs, I think that’s a tad unfair.

Yes, they’ve certainly taken the “it’s called ‘Planet of Fire’” thing a bit literally, with great gouts of CG billowing up from every rocky orifice, but the thing we should be looking at here is...

Is it entertaining? And it is. Oh, it very is. I have to admit it’s been a while since I’ve perused the whole uncutdown four-episodic glory of this story. My default opinion upon settling down to watch was that this was a good second class story. It’s a mere prelude to the Caves of Androzani. Peter Grimwade, bless his intense soul, simply had too many shopping-list ingredients to include (you know the items to which I refer, Who fans). The foreign location is somewhat diluted by having Lanzorote and the Lanzorote-planet in the same story. (Never mind the Croatia shoot, JNT would have handled this better in the late McCoy era, when his production skills had reached Churchill-like proportions of genius).

And yet, I loved it. Cut down and all, it retains its soul. By which of course I mean Peri in her hot pink bikini (is she really going out with him?)

No I don’t. Above I accused Peter Grimwade of having a soul, and I’m not sure if he’d thank me for it. But this story does have a soul, and the Special Edition preserves it.

It’s Kamelion’s swansong, but, although I normally shy away from superstition like a freshly frightened horse, I’m not prepared to talk about Kamelion.

Instead I’d like to say that watching this Special Edition I felt like I was in the story. Not me personally, I’m no dusty native of Sarn, but I could relate to the random band interloped upon by Davison’s as ever splendid Doctor.

Even more so than in The Krotons (sorry), I could see a bunch of people whose entire way of life, whose entire culture, is suddenly upended by this ridiculous new arrival. He’s dressed in tailored cricket whites, and they know that he’s right. He’s right about the volcanic mechanics left by the Trions. He’s right that the Master isn’t to be trusted. He’s right that their religion is a heap of nonsense built on decayed memories of an event long past...

Ah, yes. Religion. Always a fun debate in Doctor Who World. Most fans, I suspect, would side with the Doctor in flying a big – if slightly toned down – Richard Dawkins Flag. But there are those, I know from my perusal of the DWM letters column, who are both Whovian and Christian. (Some of them aren’t even American!)

And that’s fair enough, it would be a betrayal of the indefinable ethos of the programme to exclude anyone. Plus I’ve met some nice Christians in my time. But I have to admit I personally, like Peter Grimwade (possibly), only have a soul in a strictly metaphorical sense. And thus I’m glad to see this story kick some religious butt. No doubt there are Christian exegeses of this tale, and I’m sure as soon as I post this my attention will be drawn to them. Good. I like hearing different viewpoints and I’m looking for future material.

That semi-serious stuff out of the way, I would now like to turn to my totally favourite thing about this watching of the Planet of Fire Special Edition.

Anthony Ainley. I mean, how good is he?

It’s pathetic of me, but I’ve never really noticed it before. I grew up in the Tom generation, and much as I loved Ainley’s Master at the points of original broadcast, I was infected with that old sore; it’s not as good as it used to be:

Well, sure, Anthony Ainley’s got a stick-on beard plastered to his mush, and we respect and thank him for that, but – he’s hardly Roger Delgado is he?

No, he’s not Delgado. He’s not John Simm either. And Simm wasn’t Delgado and Delgado wasn’t Simm. It’s not about that. I realise. Thirty years later.

As in many areas, the RTD/Moff era has taught me to stop worrying and love the Master. Boy, is Ainley’s version insane. You thought John Simm banging an oil drum was bonkers? I barely dared gaze into this guy’s eyes, lest I too succumbed to that ever-tempting voice that squeaks ‘Destroy!’ in the back of one’s mind like Johnny Rotten’s T-shirt fresh out of the wash.

Oh, the perfect beauty of the lines Ainley is given and the beautifully perfect delivery he gives them! Kamelion-formed, he hauls Peri into his TARDIS, metallic fist clasped around her wrist. “It’s just like the Doctor’s,” she opines. Our Master’s reply?

“Yes. But Infinitely Superior. (BEAT) As am I.”

He deserves a statuette, if not a plaque, for that.

And then, discovered miniaturised in his Control Shoebox, he faces the Doctor’s accurate supposition that this is all a result of mucking about with the TCE. An explanation is required.

“I was building a newer and more deadly version!”

Hurrah! He’s so evil that turning you into an Action Man and leaving you next to your boiled egg is just... NOT DEADLY ENOUGH!

For which we must applaud the old Psycho. Had he bumped into van Gogh, he would have contrived to turn the depressed artist *into* a sunflower. And then cackled at length.

So, Lord Anthony Of Ainley, I salute you. And I salute Peter Davison, Nicola Bryant, Mark Strickson, and indeed Peter Wyngarde, who gives a relatively subtle, and rather lovely, performance. I salute JNT, and Peter Grimwade, and director Fiona Cumming.

(What a weird line-up. Fifth Doctor, Turlough, Kamelion, Peri. Like something Big Finish would try to sell you a box-set of.)

And, yes, I salute those behind the flames, the producers of the Special Edition. Even if they do persist in sticking themselves in the end credits.

(All images are of course © the BBC. As indeed is Doctor Who in general.)

On Silver Devastation

The Mission Statement, if you will, of this here site is to range freely and widely over the vast landscape that is Doctor Who. Think of it as an Electro-Fanzine, largely positive, but unafraid to be opinionated. Be warned: Hindsight may be utilised in an irresponsible (but amusingly enlightening) manner.

All comments and queries, all clarifications, complications, corrections and suggestions are gratefully received.