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Doctor Who

FishyFish

By FishyFish
in Film, TV & Radio

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davidcotton

davidcotton

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Just a heads up that for 24 hours Big Finish are celebrating their 15 years (ouch!) by having 3 titles on special offer.

Sirens of Time, the very first one and starring 5th 6th and 7th Dr's together.

Jubilee, the basis for the story that became Dalek way back in 2005 (ouch again)

The Harvest. A contemporary London story and reintroducing the Cyberman and also introducing Philip Olivier as Hex.

Available on CD for £2.99 or the even more bargain tastic £1.00 for download!

If you've been slightly curious about the audios check out Jubilee or The Harvest (sirens is ok but shows it's age a little).

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Flub

Flub

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Had a weird dream last night. Was watching Doctor Who starring the ghost of the 6th Doctor and dobbin from Rentaghost done up in silver like a cyberman. He even had the pipes on the side of his head.

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Sprite Machine

Sprite Machine

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The Eleventh Hour

(Blog has pictures)

A new showrunner, a new Doctor, a new companion, a new Tardis, new logo, new titles and a whole new story arc, 'The Eleventh Hour' wipes the slate clean and says "time for something new". It's one of the freshest and most confident season openers since 'Spearhead from Space' saw Jon Pertwee tumbling out of the Tardis in colour.

[Picture: "I was in the swimming pool." "You said you were in the library." "So was the swimming pool."]

I've moaned about introductory episodes being set on Earth during some sort of invasion, and while 'The Eleventh Hour' is no exception, this is an example of when it can work really well. As the title suggests, the Doctor is up against the clock and has to stop the Atraxi ships from incinerating the Earth while stuck in a small English village (with a closed post office), without his Tardis or sonic screwdriver, and he only has twenty minutes. Not the sort of thing you want to have to do on your first day.

[Picture: The Doctor tells the Atraxi to bugger off.]

There's so much new stuff to cram into this episode, it's a testament to Steven Moffat's efficient plotting that it all fits and makes sense. New girl Amy Pond has to be introduced twice, once as a little girl and again twelve years later (her character somewhat mirroring the other 'girl who waited' from 'The Girl in the Fireplace'), introduce Rory, the boyfriend competing with Amy's obsession over her 'imaginary' friend, the Doctor has to find his feet, eat fishfingers and custard, investigate the mysterious crack in the Universe that has manifested itself as a crack Amelia's bedroom wall, explain dimensional barriers, perception filters, Prisoner Zero escaping and then convince a scientific consortium to help him reprogram every clock in the world using a mobile phone. It's just insane.

[Picture: This crack will follow the Doctor through time and space for a while.]

The script is full of wonderful one-liners and witty banter, the plot has some great misdirection (who Amy is, what 'the human residence' means) and clever ideas like the man barking like his dog because he didn't know which voice was which. There's a good mix of creepy and whimsical; I loved all the creepy stuff with the extra room in the house and the door in the corner of your eye, but it's just one of many ideas that whoosh by too fast.

[Picture: Amy comes face-to-face with Prisoner Zero's true form.]

Matt Smith makes a terrific first impression. Inevitably, the manic style of the Tenth Doctor has taken grip now, so there's no change there, but the mannerisms are more alien and weird. The eleventh Doctor doesn't quite understand human customs or good manners. He's more of a fairy tale character here. His weirdness is amplified due to being newly regenerated, but to be honest, he doesn't change much going forward.

[Picture: "You're Scottish, fry something." The Doctor finally discovers his craving for fishfingers and custard.]

While I think this is an incredibly strong opening, there are some less favourable elements creeping in. Murray Gold's music is bombastic and overbearing, and "that theme" that he keeps reusing starts here. This is also the start of the Doctor's "don't mess with me, look what I did to all my other enemies" phase, when he becomes increasingly arrogant. No, perhaps it started earlier with David Tennant, but it's blossomed into its own thing now and will continue to get worse. Finally, while I enjoy mysteries and story arcs, I seem to recall the Crack™ doesn't get a satisfactory resolution. In fact, its appearance in this story (as a gateway to a prison dimension?) doesn't correlate with what we later learn about it. Much of the story arc is incredibly convoluted as far as I can recall, but I'll re-appraise that properly at a later date.

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NEG

NEG

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Imo they used 11's far too much, it felt like literally any time he came up with an idea towards the end of an episode it would start.

Great theme, but overused. They never bothered changing up that same theme either, which is a shame. Compare this to tennant who got, besides his own theme, happy and sad versions of song for ten, and vale decem.

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The Bag

The Bag

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You can find similarities all over the place in music, be it a deliberate homage, unconscious influence, or straight rip off I don't think it's much to get upset about.

For example the Star Wars theme and the Kings Row theme, here Williams & Lucas acknowledge the influence of Korngold

There's probably better videos that this bit it's the first that appeared on YouTube of a collection of various similarities in film music from melody to chord progression

http://youtu.be/pINDapfDNog

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Darren

Darren

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And as the hype machine starts up for the new series and new Doctor, I realise we'll be on holiday when it starts.

Spare a thought for me, lying on a sun lounger, all-inclusive bar and all-you-can-eat buffet within easy staggering distance, wishing I was at home watching Doctor Who.

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CarloOos

CarloOos

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The Eleventh Doctor's Theme was pretty much the only bit of Murray Gold's score* I liked. Then this was pointed out to me:

Shameful!

*And I did like the song he did with Neil Hannon for the Runaway Bride.

If the Eleventh Doctor's theme is ripping off anything then surely it's this:

Skip to 1:10, from that point onwards it's practically identical.

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