Ten Things I Hate About Who. Part Nine: Doctor Who Meets Trashy Pop Culture

I have made no effort to disguise my growing disdain for NuWho.  I was concerned I was speaking to an empty theater so to speak, but to quote the Face of Boe, "You are not alone".  On one of the Facebook pages I belong to (Classic Doctor Who Fans Who Dislike New Who), I have come across a series of thoughts by Mr. Paul Berry.  We in the group were so genuinely impressed by his series that I urged him to publish them. 

Ethan White of Sixstanger00 has requested permission to upload them on his YouTube page.  I don't know if Mr. Berry has but hope he does.  I for my part asked for permission to reprint them on this site. 

Mr. Berry has graciously allowed me to republish them as he posts them, and here is the ninth of a ten-essay series.  It is reprinted as written with the content exactly as it appears. The only alterations made are for any grammatical/spelling errors, spacing for paragraphs, and perhaps a few afterthoughts which will be noted after the photos.

For this essay, I also added all the photos save for the Osmonds one, which was part of the original essay.

I hope readers enjoy and share them.  I also hope readers will debate these matters, for I believe in a healthy debate.  However, I find Mr. Berry's comments and thoughts quite well-thought out and worthy of a greater audience. 

With that, I present Part Nine of this series: 10 Things I Hate About New Who. 

 

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10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT NEW WHO

9) DOCTOR WHO MEETS TRASHY POP CULTURE

For a programme about time travel I have always felt Doctor Who has had a certain timelessness;  a majority of the episodes from the classic show can be seen out of context from when they were originally made and yet still be perfectly relevant and understandable today. Yes the series production values easily date the show to a particular period, but when viewing many of the episodes the odd dodgy haircut or fashion aside they don't feel too tied to a particular time.

Sixties Doctor Who doesn't seem mired in psychedelia, while 70's Who doesn't feel permeated by glam rock. This is because the pop culture of the time wasn't allowed to needlessly intrude on the story. The classic series pandered to popular culture on a handful of occasions, probably the most blatant of which was jumping on The Beatles bandwagon in The Chase. The Beatles were mentioned again in The Three Doctors, got played on a jukebox in Evil of the Daleks and Elton John got a rather unflattering reference in Planet of Fire. There may have been others but generally speaking they were few and far between.

Imagine though how it could have been. Susan being a Cliff Richard fan and the drama of stories like The Daleks being undercut by references to Cliff's then recent Summer Holiday film. Twiggy getting a cameo as herself in The War Machines. Troughton's Doctor turning up on a sci-fi version of Juke Box Jury where the rest of the panel are robotic versions of various celebrities.  The Osmonds putting in an appearance during the Pertwee era. I would argue if any of this sort of thing had happened it would have made the old show much less than it was.

Classic Who remains so watchable and accessible now because it largely kept away from the pop culture that surrounded it; like those other sci-fi greats Star Trek & Star Wars, it existed in its own bubble universe.

As my mom says, "They know him at HIS house..."

I would argue that much new Doctor Who is so entrenched in modern disposable pop culture that it feels cheapened and dated by such inclusions. What relevance today do X Factor winner Shayne Ward or many of the futuristic game shows featured in the Bad Wolf episode have?

Putting pop culture references into Who is a tricky business. OK, it makes the show modern and cool.  Used in moderation and depending on what is being referenced and who is doing the referencing it is generally okay, but as with many aspects of the new series it has been overdone to the point where it has become intrusive.

The Tennant era was probably when it was at its height and was made worse by the fact that The Doctor was often the one referencing 21st century pop culture: Kylie in The Idiot's Lantern (a bit incongruous considering she later turned up in the series), Eastenders in The Impossible Planet, Skeletor in the Dreamland cartoon to name just a few off the top of my head.

Okay realistically speaking The Doctor has visited all parts of human history and absorbed the culture of the time. He knows of Dickens, Shakespeare and the greats; maybe in the future Eastenders is high art. It is feasible today's disposable culture could well be that, but the truth is it feels odd and incongruous in Doctor Who that The Doctor would know of such things; it just doesn't work dramatically.

My own opinion on the matter is that a 20-30 year rule works well on what pop culture can be assimilated into Doctor Who. When the 7th Doctor refers to Elvis in Time and the Rani, he is enmeshed in history as such an iconic figure that we can believe that The Doctor would talk of him as a great of human history. Had Hartnell or Troughton talked of Elvis it would have seemed a gratuitious pop culture reference.

Ian Dury's music played in the TARDIS in Tooth and Claw again works to a degree because it is old enough to believe that the 10th Doctor could be a fan of the punk era. Used during the Baker Era it would have been disastrous. Similarly the playing of Soft Cell's Tainted Love in The End of the World is another touch, again old enough to just about be viable as a piece of music that has survived into the far future. The subsequent inclusion of a contemporary Britney Spears track in the same story then ruins the effect.

The Beatles cameo in The Chase
(the only known footage of them from Top of the Pops)

This is my personal opinion but that 25-30 year lag on what elements of pop culture The Doctor can talk about works in my mind. That said even older pop culture references can jar and seem incongruous. David Warner listening to Vienna by Midge Ure in the Cold War episode is one that springs to mind, the other is the use of The Lion Sleeps Tonight in Rise of the Cybermen. The use of these songs in the context just comes across as tacky and seems more about the writers personal music taste than how it aids the story.

The Russell T Davies era also brought us the yearly celebrity cameos, a feature thankfully Moffat seems to have dropped. Tricia, Mcfly, Sharon Osborne amongst others all popped up. All this just tied Doctor Who into a low brow pop culture. It was one step away from The Doctor taking up reading The Sun or News of the World.

I am not saying the show should have no references to modern culture but it should be sparing and nowhere near as gratuitious as it has been over the years. All these references have nothing to do with telling the story, but are more to do with the insecurity of not letting the show stand on its own merits and feeling the need to seed it with references and cameos from all the other shows and culture its audience is familiar with, so Doctor Who seems part of the hip crowd of programmes, and not some maverick sci fi show for nerds.

You ARE The Weakest Link.  Goodbye!

I must admit I can't recall too much in the latest series so to give Steven Moffat his credit I think he has vastly toned it down, but much of the RTD era is blighted by this stuff which to me makes Doctor Who less of a sci fi classic and more of a tacky piece of pop culture.

I think Doctor Who works better without all this stuff. Indeed when it was used in the classic series it often wasn't very successful either. The Doctor's reference to Batman in Inferno for instance is the low point in an otherwise near flawless story. Yes we know Polly and Ben came from Swinging London, Jo Grant had a thing for 70's fashions and Ace liked her big tape decks, but that was all we needed to know, enough to make a connection with the contemporary world without being beaten over the head by it.

I think the worse reference ever was not actually in the series but in one of the early 9th Doctor books where the Doctor seemed to have an innate knowledge of a plot going on in a then-current episode of Eastenders. Don't get me wrong: I like Eastenders, but it and Doctor Who don't mix and Dimensions in Time is testament to this. Like that scene in the Paul McGann TV movie: I can buy The Doctor sitting back to read the greats in his spare time. What I can't visualise is him sitting down to a soap marathon of Eastenders, Hollyoaks or Emmerdale with a bit Jeremy Kyle thrown in for good measure, but I believe by his intrusive use of all this pop culture that is probably what The Doctor has been getting upto in his last few incarnations.

NEXT TIME: 10) VULGARITY & SILLINESS

Oddly, this essay brings to mind, of all things, Scooby-Doo. 

During the original run of Scooby-Doo, various celebrity guest voices came to help solve the particular mystery.  I particularly remember Mama Cass from The Mamas and the Papas doing a guest turn.  What exactly Mama Cass was doing with these meddlesome kids I can't recall, only that as a child, the only thing I remember about this particular story was that 'no one's getting fat, except Mama Cass". 

It's no surprise therefore that a lot of times I've heard people compare Doctor Who to Scooby-Doo, though I imagine for various reasons, none flattering.

The curious thing is that anyone watching the Scooby-Doo with Mama Cass won't see a great singer with some memorable songs like Dream a Little Dream or Words of Love.  Instead, they'll see a silly fat woman obsessed with chocolate and getting her exercise by running after ghosts.

One thing that I think Berry is completely right about is on how modern references in NuWho makes things dated, and worse, a bit confusing.  Take Bad Wolf Part 2 (Bad Wolf) as an example.  Apart from The Weakest Link and Big Brother I had no idea what other shows they were referencing.  This is due to me being American, which then narrows the scope of Doctor Who for non-British viewers.  Imagine if The Doctor were suddenly on Let's Make a Deal or Beat Bobby Flay or Cutthroat Kitchen or  Keeping Up with the Kardashians or Press Your Luck.  Would fans in say Australia or India or Britain be able to fully appreciate what's going on?  I'm sure they could piece it together (as I did, though for full disclosure I've never seen an episode of Big Brother and only one episode of Survivor) .  You are forced to make these shows part of Canon, and then you are forced to say that these stories take place in OUR world rather than an a plausible but still alternate world.

The Next Companion?

Take The Daemons for example.  Here we had a world that could exist, but once the church was blown up, we could move on without thinking it HAD to happen in a particular time. Contemporary audiences could see it as either present or future, future audiences (like myself) could put it in the present or past.  It still stands because it wasn't tied to a particular time.  NuWho isn't like that at all.  It is rooted in the present, but then it becomes disposable, failing to obtain the classic level Classic Who stories like Daemons or Tomb of the Cybermen have. 

Anyone really think people fifty years from now will curl up to watch The Bells of Saint John or Closing Time? 

I personally don't think including some modern references is a bad thing.  However, take a second look at The Chase's Beatles reference.  To Vicki, The Beatles were 'classical' music, as she was from the 25th Century.  It was made partly as a joke (to signal that something as 'pop' as The Beatles were in the future considered 'classical') and from a unique perspective (a girl in the far future).  It would be the same as if I, a 21st Century man, went into what I would consider 'the past' and tell someone on Tin Pan Alley that the Gershwin Brothers' music was high art and performed in concert halls.  To someone in the 1920s, this would seem rather silly as George and Ira Gershwin wrote what were considered popular songs.  However, they wouldn't have the perspective I do.  Similarly, The Beatles reference was not bizarre or out of place, but from the vantage point of someone for whom John, Paul, George, and Ringo were long-dead historic figures. 

Even celebrity guest appearances can work IF they are done correctly.  Take for example pop singer Foxes cameo in Mummy on the Orient Express.  She made a quick appearance singing a song, keeping it to the 1920s feel of the episode, and it wasn't overblown or heightened.  For those of us who've never heard of Foxes, it was irrelevant what her current status is.  It wasn't a big deal, but a nice touch.

Converse that with Professor Richard Dawkins in The Stolen Earth or Sian Williams and Bill Turnbull in The Wedding of River Song.  Think people really care who the last two are or will care fifty years from now (I personally don't care for the first one either, but that's unimportant).  It does immediately date the episode in the same way having say Sarah Jane Smith report to Walter Cronkite would have if the original series had done what NuWho does. 

One thing that Mr. Berry probably doesn't see is that it is different for non-British people when they watch these references in NuWho.  Someone watching Dimensions in Time would be puzzled as to what Miss Brahms from Are You Being Served? was doing here, and we wouldn't get the reference (also, if DIT is Canon, does that mean Pauline Fowler really exists as well?)  Things do get lost in translation, and it muddies the waters for those of us not following the adventures of Albert Square. 

Of COURSE I'm Marion Anderson, Leontyne Price,
and Martina Arroyo's equal!
Maybe they could sing, but did any of them
get Tom Cruise to JUMP?!

Pop culture has become THE culture around the world.  It's infected everything.  Even something as lofty as The Kennedy Center Honors is now ruled (and ruined) by the next/new/now ethos of celebrating pop.  Once, Kennedy Center Honorees were the likes of Yehudi Menuhin, Agnes de Mille, and William Shuman; today, they now select figures like Sting, Led Zeppelin, and Oprah Winfrey as people worthy of recognition for their contribution to HIGH culture.    

Ultimately, while I personally don't find something bad about current references, Doctor Who, and any show really, should tread lightly on these matters. 

What will Whovians fifty years from now think of Mcfly and Sharon Osbourne in the same world as the Daleks? 
 

Ten Things I Hate About Who. Part Eight: Unlikeable Companions and Cliched Characters With Silly Names

I have made no effort to disguise my growing disdain for NuWho.  I was concerned I was speaking to an empty theater so to speak, but to quote the Face of Boe, "You are not alone".  On one of the Facebook pages I belong to (Classic Doctor Who Fans Who Dislike New Who), I have come across a series of thoughts by Mr. Paul Berry.  We in the group were so genuinely impressed by his series that I urged him to publish them. 

Ethan White of Sixstanger00 has requested permission to upload them on his YouTube page.  I don't know if Mr. Berry has but hope he does.  I for my part asked for permission to reprint them on this site. 

Mr. Berry has graciously allowed me to republish them as he posts them, and here is the eight of a ten-essay series.  It is reprinted as written with the content exactly as it appears. The only alterations made are for any grammatical/spelling errors, spacing for paragraphs, and perhaps a few afterthoughts which will be noted after the photos.

For this essay, I also added all the photos save for the last three, which was part of the original essay.

 I hope readers enjoy and share them.  I also hope readers will debate these matters, for I believe in a healthy debate.  However, I find Mr. Berry's comments and thoughts quite well-thought out and worthy of a greater audience. 

With that, I present Part Eight of this series: 10 Things I Hate About New Who. 

 

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10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT NEW WHO

8) UNLIKEABLE COMPANIONS & CLICHED CHARACTERS WITH SILLY NAMES

One of the things that has struck me about this latest season of Doctor Who is how unlikeable the Companion has become. Clara frequently came across as petulant, snivelling and up herself. I am not sure if it's Steven Moffat's writing or Jenna Coleman's performance, probably a bit of both but if I were still watching the programme her exit from the show couldn't come soon enough. The problem is that the next Companion isn't likely to be much better because Steven Moffat cant seem to create genuine believable characters.

In all honesty I have only liked two Companions in new Doctor Who, Rose and Martha. I haven't revisited these episodes in a long time and I found it easier to forgive the show its sins back then so it may be well that these two characters havent weathered as well as I thought, but at the time they genuinely seemed to gel as likeable charismatic characters.

Billie Piper in fact deserved much of the acclaim for the series comeback in 2005. I think the strength of her performance helped carry Christopher Eccleston's rather weak and uneven one. Hers was the greater loss to the show when she bowed out at the end of Season 2. Rose seemed to be a character in touch with the time without being overdone or nauseating; that said the writing of her character in the second season was not nearly as good as the first and too much time was spent trying to make her look smart or witty.

Martha was probably not as well a realised character and was saddled with the god awful storyline of her having a crush on the Doctor, but Freema Agyeman's performance was endearing enough to overcome the shortcomings. I think given longer Martha would be a much better remembered character than she is. Sadly she was dumped from the show with the pathetic reason that she had to get over her infatuation with the Doctor.

The real reason seemed to be that they had got wind that Catherine Tate would be up for a full season as the Companion after her brief stint in the previous year's Christmas special. I could never take to Donna as a Companion. It was Doctor Who hooking up with low brow culture and a stereotyped one at that. She did admittedly get a bit better as the series went on and the caterwauling fish wife persona was vastly toned down.

The fourth series was the nadir of Russell T Davies' period on the show when any of the positive aspects of the first three series were thrown to the wall as the series became a full fledged sci fi light entertainment show with Tennant and Tate as a comedy double act.

Matt Smith's debut brought us Amy Pond, a character who for me never gelled at all. I just never got what Amy was all about; she just seemed to have no personality at all. Admittedly she was lumbered with some poor Steven Moffat material but Karen Gillan's delivery always seemed so flat and uninteresting. Even worse though was the decision to make her boyfriend Rory a permanent Companion, a character so uncharismatic that he barely registered when he appeared in Matt Smith's first episode.

Rory has been the butt of many of my jokes over the years, but I honestly think he is the worst Companion to ever grace the series; he was just so damn dull. Perhaps Moffat thought he was championing the fan underdog with his tale of the boring geek who gets the hot girl, but it was as stimulating as watching paint dry.

Furthermore the same story had already been done with the whole Rose Tyler/Mickey Smith thing. The attempts to create tragedy and drama with the whole Rory being wiped from history thing and then becoming a Roman Auton Centurion, or whatever the hell he was, was just ridiculous and laughable and the attempts to toughen the character up just fell flat.

Arthur Darvill couldn't play hard to save his life.

Any producer with any sense would have realised the Amy/Rory pairing just wasn't working and swiftly dropped them from the show or at least dropped Rory and tried to get a better dynamic going between the Doctor & Amy. Unfortunately in his Ivory Tower Steven Moffat seemed uneffected by issues that would have troubled his predecessors, such as when characters like Katarina or Dodo were quickly dropped when they were felt not to be working. So it was Amy and Rory endured hanging around like a bad smell for long after their sell by date.

Admittedly I didn't see their last year's worth of adventures or their exit, so forgive me if they got better but I doubt it.

There have also been those characters which can't fully be classed as Companions but more as recurring supporting characters. We never really had these in the classic series unless you count the Brigadier and the UNIT team.

First off was Rose's family. We had Mum Jackie and boyfriend Mickey. Jackie was Doctor Who's first brush with low brow chav culture. It was Doctor Who meets a particularly bad day time soap opera, and Camille Caduri was never able to give any nuance to the character above the stereotype Russell T Davies had created. Mickey initially didn't make much of an impression, but as the series went on Noel Clarke seemed to get better and the writers noticed this and upped their game.

Captain Jack, I thought at the time seemed to be almost forced on the show. I also found John Barrowman's performance to be stereotypical American guy. I remember being astounded that he was getting his own spin off show after only 5 episodes. In the end I came to like Torchwood much more than I did new Doctor Who and Barrowman was a lot better in that, even if they did give him a lot of the Doctor's traits.

Martha's family was just a complete non entity and was barely worth including. Bernard Cribbins endearing performance as Wilf just about made the inclusion of Donna's family bearable, her mother Sylvia came across as pretty unlikeable: Doctor Who's clichéd attempt at doing someone with heirs and graces.

Then we had River Song, a character who was initially okay in her debut story before she spiraled out of control into an overblown cliché with Alex Kingston camping it up for all she was worth. We then had the so called Paternoster Gang, a group of three random characters chucked together from nowhere as if Moffat had decided he wanted to make a spin off but couldn't be bothered to go the usual route of waiting for a character to make an impression first. These cringe inducing characters again seemed to be shoehorned in at every opportunity, even though to my mind they don't really work.

Finally this year saw yet another Companion's boyfriend: Mr. Danny Pink. I initially tried to give the character the benefit of the doubt figuring he couldn't be as bad as Rory, but have to concede as his story came to an end this season (if it is the end) the character was overall pretty pointless and hadn't really helped the series in any way.

And what's with all these silly names? Can anybody take a character seriously with the name Danny Pink (even more ridiculous was when we heard that his real name is Rupert Pink)? Its like Moffatt's trying to go out his way to destroy a character's credibility before we've even seen them. Why do Moffat and RTD seem to keep giving  Companions these old fashioned names? Martha and Clara sound like two refugees from Last of the Summer Wine. Amy Pond and Rory Williams hardly seem naturalistic.

Ian Chesterton. Victoria Waterfield. Sarah Jane Smith. There's an unpretentiousness about these names which work; they just trip off the tongue.

The silliness with names and cliched characters spills over into the smaller supporting characters. We've had Margaret Slitheen, Chip, the Van Hoffs, Bannakaffalatta, Lorna Bucket, just to name but a few off the top of my head. There have occasionally been some good guest performances, particularly in the first series. Simon Callow and Shaun Dingwell immediately spring to mind as giving good honest performances where the characters are played for real , but more often than not the supporting characters in the new series have not been very memorable and have often veered close to cliché.

I am not saying the old series was above this as there were some classic examples of actors hamming it up and going over the top. But the new series has truly produced some awful tacky characters who just dont seem as if they should even belong in Doctor Who. I literally cringe at the thought of the Van Hoffs from Voyage of the Damned, looking like two refugees from a Dolly Parton concert. Or the shrieking girlfriend they invented for Martha's dad in one episode. Or the crowd of pensioners which graced David Tennant's final story and seemed like they had wondered in from Coronation Street.

I also often notice a style of acting in new Doctor Who which I can only describe as children's series acting; it is not all pervasive but is prevalent enough to be noticable and robs the series of any credibility as proper sci fi. Classic Who's Shakespearean theatrics may hardly be naturalistic, but at least they didn't feel dumbed down, the actors were mostly playing at the same level you would have got in I, Claudius or other costume fare of the period.

Nowadays many of the performances seem pitched down to the sort of thing you'd expect of a Disney kids film or something on the CBBC channel.

The truth is supporting characters and Companions don't necessarily need to be multifaceted or have huge backstories or family connections; they just need to be honest, well written characters played by actors who believe in their roles and aren't dumbing down their performances.

Over its original 26 year run Doctor Who had so many memorable characters it is hard to know where to start. New Doctor Who has on the other hand produced very few memorable or enduring characters. If Doctor Who can't give us characters we like or believe in there isn't a lot of hope for the rest of the programme.

NEXT TIME: 9) DR WHO MEETS TRASHY POP CULTURE

  

Again, a lot of ground to cover.

In terms of NuWho Companions I'm at a slight disadvantage in that both all the Martha, Donna, and Wilf eras (nearly the sum of the Tennant Era) went by me since I boycotted Doctor Who after the horror of Love & Monsters.   However, after reading and rereading Mr. Berry's thoughts I agree that most NuWho Companions are pretty weak.

They are weak in so many ways.  They are weak emotionally.  With the exception of Donna (at least I'm led to believe) every one of his main Companions has had a fixation on The Doctor, usually romantic or erotic.   Their whole lives revolve around the Doctor.  I can't imagine Zoe or Jamie or Liz Shaw ever being obsessed with the Doctor.  Ian and Barbara wanted to go home, and while they eventually enjoyed travelling with The Doctor they were thrilled to return to their own time. 

Come to think of it, did any Classic Companions cry when they left?  They might have been sad, but full-on tears?  

They are also weak intellectually.  The majority of NuWho Companions don't have high levels of education.  Martha is a doctor, River a professor (though I would argue she's not an actual educator but an adventuress), and Rory a nurse.  Apart from that the NuWho Companions have at most a high school education.  Yes, Clara is a teacher, but until she magically popped up as one in The Day of The Doctor there was never any indication that she was certified to be one.   We have a whole slew of Companions who in short have almost no life and few prospects until they meet The Doctor.  

Now, having a basic level of education is not a hindrance to being a great Companion.  Jamie McCrimmon was not highly educated.  However, I do wonder why most NuWho Companions can't be of various backgrounds.  You had educators as the first Companions (Ian and Barbara) and professionals (journalists, scientists, military...despite the Doctor's lifelong 'hatred' for soldiers).  A lot of the NuWho Companions appear to be cut from the same cloth, and that is their third weakness.

They are weak thematically.  Take a look at the main NuWho Companions:

Rose: 21st Century London girl. 
Martha: 21st Century London girl. 
Donna: 21st Century London woman (the idea of Catherine Tate being a 'girl' is a stretch). 
Amy: 21st Century Scottish girl. 
Clara: 21st Century London girl.

Is it me or is there a theme?  Just in the Hartnell and Troughton Era, we had a wide variety of Companions:

Two 20th Century adults: Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright
A 25th Century girl: Vicki
A 23rd Century astronaut: Steven Taylor
A 1st Century BC handmaiden: Katarina
A 40th Century Security Agent: Sara Kingdom
Two 20th Century girls: Dodo Chaplet and Polly
A 20th Century boy: Able Seaman Ben Jackson (strange since the Doctor has always hated soldiers)
An 18th Century Scotsman: Jamie McCrimmon
A Victorian girl: Victoria Waterfield
A 21st Century math prodigy: Zoe Hariot
    

Then we've got a wide variety of Companions in the show's long history: investigative journalist Sarah Jane Smith, "savage" Leela and sophisticated Romana, American student Peri Brown, Australian air hostess Tegan Jovanka, Royal Navy medical officer Harry Sullivan, and exiled alien Turlough. 

 

In short, all sorts of Companions from the past, present, and future, as well as those who were both human and humanoid served alongside The Doctor.  Now, we get the same thing over and over, and not just with the female Companions.  Anyone who didn't think Rory was just another Mickey is extremely gullible.  Why do the male Companions, who are there basically as the female Companions' love interest, tend to be idiots?

 

My own theory is that Doctor Who 2.0 is Companion-centered, not Doctor-centered.  That is why we can have epic storylines around Rose, around Donna, around Amy, around River, around the Paternoster Unholy Trilogy, with the Doctor just being the excuse to tie things together (and most of the time, tie them in badly if not unbelievably).   This is why we have to have all these stories about Rose's family, about Donna's family, about Clara's family and Amy's family.   It really is all about them.  It's a shame really, given that this gives us nothing more than soap-opera/Twilight-type stories rather than good solid science-fiction.  Imagine if we had to stop something like Inferno to check up on the Brigadier's maiden aunt or Liz Shaw's boyfriend.    

 

As for the silly names, I don't know why we have to have them apart from bad stabs at comedy.  When the Doctor travelled through the Key to Time story arc, take a look at the names of the worlds he went to: Ribos, Zanak, Earth, Tara, the Third Moon of Delta Magna, and Atrios.  They sound rational, with their own civilizations that are familiar and yet otherworldly.

 

NuWho, conversely, has The Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe from The Long Game.  It was such a horrifying tongue-twister that guest star Simon Pegg found it almost unpronounceable and at one point sound effects had to be used to cover up his inability to say something so complex.  It's a pity writers like Davies and Moffat can't understand that while these things sound amusing TO THEM, they aren't thinking of the poor actor/actress who has to SPEAK such things.   

 

Need I remind people of the planet Raxacoricofallapatorious from Aliens of London Parts 1 & 2? No wonder Eccleston quit in disgust! 

 

Compare that planet's name to Ribos, Zanak, Tara, and Atrios.  The most they had was two syllables.  The other one has eleven. 

 

All these names I think are done because the writers think they're funny, but they simply serve to draw attention to themselves and show how goofy everything is.  One of the reasons I thought The Long Game was awful was precisely because I couldn't take something with such an overtly idiotic name seriously. It's like having a Bond villain named Gretel. 

 

One last thing.  As for the Companions being unlikable, well, eventually their neediness soon overwhelms any sense of adventures in space and time.  Rose's weepy love for The Doctor, Martha's unrequited love for The Doctor, River's erotic fixation for The Doctor, Amy's perpetual anger towards The Doctor, Clara's big-eyed anger towards The Doctor. 

 

I detest River Song (and that's considering I haven't seen her debut).  Just one episode was enough to think her a smug little...  And worse, if one looks at her story, like so much in Doctor Who, it's both irrelevant to the show AND it doesn't make any sense!

 

Of course, this is what happens when the Companion becomes the de facto star of Doctor Who, with now TWO showrunners forgetting the show isn't about the Companion.  Would that they remember the name of the show and take things from there...

The Walking Dead of The Doctor

STORY 255.2: THE WRATH OF MISSY 

PART 2 (DEATH IN HEAVEN)

I like The Pet Shop Boys, and I think it is fitting to quote them in regards to Death in Heaven, the second part of the Series/Season Eight finale.

What have I, what have I, what have I done to deserve this?

From its opening to its teaser scene featuring Santa Claus(!), Death in Heaven is just an absolute disaster, jumbled, chaotic, nonsensical. The praise it has been receiving makes me think that either reviewers have flat-out been bribed by either Steven Moffat/the BBC or genuinely thought it was all brilliant, proving Lenin's idea of 'the useful idiot' extends to television.

Well, let's pick up from Dark Water, where we learn that Missy (Michelle Gomez) is a new (female) version of The Master.  Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman) is still in the Nethersphere, being threatened by a newly-created Cyberman.  Other Cybermen from Missy's Army have stormed out of St. Paul's Cathedral, and the Doctor (Peter Capaldi) seems powerless to stop the Mistress/Cybermen unholy union.  Clara then gives us a 'shocking' revelation: Clara Oswald NEVER existed!  Who is she?

She's THE DOCTOR!

Well, we already had one transgendered Time Lord, so why not another? 

Of course this is all a rouse, a desperate gamble for Clara to bluff her way out of danger.  Fortunately, one of the Cybermen is able to see past the whole "Doctor Clara" bit.  It just so happens to be the late Danny Pink (Samuel Anderson), who has his emotion inhibitor not working.

How convenient.



Catchphrases are stupid, and so are you.

Well, while Clara is dealing with Cyber-Danny, the Doctor is shocked to see that people, rather than be terrified of the Cybermen (because, you know, they've already invaded London in The Invasion, and more recently in Doomsday Parts 1 & 2), are thrilled to see them, going so far as to start taking selfies with them.  Missy herself is about to take a selfie with herself and the Doctor, when someone comes up to offer to take a picture for them.  It's Osgood (Ingrid Oliver), now sporting Converse and a bow tie (since, you know, "Bow ties are cool").  Up springs all of UNIT, and leading the charge is Kate Stewart (Jemma Redgrave).

You remember Kate Stewart...the woman who dropped the "Lethbridge" from her name so as to remove herself from being connected to her predecessor/father Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart but drops Daddy's name every chance she gets.

Well, UNIT was onto Missy all this time, but no worries...the Cybermen fly away because Cybermen can now fly (after all, why not...they haven't before but why not have them fly now, because, well, Moffat wanted them to fly, and fly they did).  To add a better touch, the dome of St. Paul's opens up to release more Cybermen, where they'll pollinate the Earth by blowing themselves up.  This is for more nefarious reasons...to bring on the black rain over the cemeteries, graveyards, and the Chaplet Funeral Home, where the corpse of one Danny Pink is there.

What for?  To be turned into that Cyberman who will come into all this, of course.

Well, I hate going on deeper into this dung-pile, but let's keep going.  The Doctor finds himself as President of Earth, having been elected by consensus by all the world leaders (think Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin ran for the post?).  Now, if the President of Earth were in danger from flying Cybermen(!), where would UNIT take the President?  Why, on a plane, of course!  Kate "I'm my own person but I have my father's portrait here to remind people of who I'm related to" Stewart is shocked, SHOCKED to find flying Cybermen can attack the plane. 

Maybe bringing Missy along in the cargo of the President's Flight in retrospect was not the best of ideas.  Missy's plans are going perfectly: the dead are coming back as Cybermen, ready to conquer the Earth.  Of course, back on the Nethersphere, things are a little jumbled...perhaps no surprise given Missy's right-hand man Seb (Chris Addison) is ostensibly in charge.  Seb tells Danny that the Nethersphere is basically a data cloud for the recently deceased (emphasis mine).  However, running around the Nethersphere is the Afghan boy Danny accidentally killed...at least well over a year ago.  Also, included in this Cyber-Army of the Dead is someone who died, according to their grave, in 1748.

I digress to say that while I may not measure time the same way Time Lords do, to me, 1748 doth not constitute "recently deceased".  Just a thought.

Well, Danny spirits Clara to a graveyard, where he begs her to end his feelings.  She can't without the Doctor's help, but he's busy at the moment.  He's trying to contain a mad Mistress, who has managed to kill Osgood (which to be fair, was about the only highlight for me in Death in Heaven, having found this character so atrocious I dubbed her "Osbad").  Missy blows the cargo doors open, sending both Kate "I'm Independent But Don't Forget Who My Father Was" Stewart and the Doctor flying out the plain while she slips back into the Nethersphere to see the end to his/her/its hated rival. 

Hands Up, PLEASE SHOOT!

However, in a stunt that made Jaws' leap from the plane in Moonraker (or perhaps Eggraker) look like a Maria Tallchief performance, the Doctor is able to fly into the falling TARDIS and use the key to get in.  Seb is so thrilled at this he asks for permission to squee...and gets promptly vaporized by Missy (which I think counts as another highlight). 

Well, the Doctor at first rejects Clara's plea to get Danny (whom he keeps referring to as "P.E.", because you know, soldiers are basically too stupid to understand math) to be a Cyberman, but now Missy's master (or Mistress) plans are finally exposed: this Cyber-Army isn't for her, but for the Doctor!  At long last, the Doctor realizes who he is.  He isn't a good man.  He isn't a bad man.  "I'm an idiot, with a box and a screwdriver, passing through, helping out, learning".  The Doctor throws the device that controls all Cybermen to Danny, who leads the Cyber-Army to blow themselves up.

All but one of them, who just happened to save Kate "I'm Not 'The Brigadier's Daughter', But I'm The Brigadier's Daughter" Stewart.  Who was this masked figure?  Why, it's the late Brigadier Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart!  The Doctor here now gives the Brig what he's always wanted: a salute, and with that the Cyber-Brig is off, flying away to who knows where/why/what.

Two Weeks Later...the Doctor and Clara reunite and both lie to each other.  Missy had told the Doctor she/he/it knew where Gallifrey was, but we see that she lied.  Clara tells the Doctor she and Danny are fine, since Danny's device can allow him to leave the Nethersphere and return to life.  Rather than do that though, he gives that up to allow the Afghan boy to return, and he asks Clara to return the boy to his family, for he has promises to keep.

Oh, and Santa Claus bursts into the closing credits, asking the Doctor what he wants for Christmas.

Let me stop at this juncture to address a few points before I tear this piece of crap apart.  First, the Afghan boy.  Apart from being accidentally killed by Danny years ago he did nothing in this episode to merit feeling anything for him.  What we have is a situation where a foreign child, who may or may not speak English, and who has been declared dead and buried, suddenly pops up very much alive in a new country.  Add to that the fact that Clara now has the unenviable task of trying to get him back to Afghanistan.  Exactly how is she going to do this? 

Is she going to travel to Afghanistan with child in tow?  No need for passports, I figure.  No worries about a single woman travelling through a war-riddled country where in certain parts she would be shot on sight for not wearing a burka.   No worries about having to buy a plane ticket, or go to whatever town said Afghan boy (whom she'd have to communicate somehow) was from, and present a dead child to perhaps one or two parents (assuming they are still alive) who have accepted that their child is dead.

WOW!  And THIS NuWhovians call 'brilliant'.

Of course, Clara could do the sensible thing...and drop the kid off at the Afghan embassy and let THEM sort it all out.  Seriously, what can Clara DO in this situation? 

Let's now move on to another topic: the time frame of the dead.  Seb makes very clear: only the recently deceased, like Danny, are being harvested.  However, true to Moffat ineptitude, he can't keep even something as simple as 'recently' straight.  The Nethersphere has wi-fi, thanks to having Steve Jobs there.  Recently deceased Steve Jobs...as in 2011 dead Steve Jobs, three years ago.  Three years ago we can argue to be 'recent' (though I think that stretches things a bit).  HOWEVER, when we have this perverse resurrection going on, one of the graves notes the date of death as "1748".  That is nowhere near 'recent' no matter how generous the terms.

Delving further, if we accept that those who were cremated can also rise, we get some pretty grotesque ideas.  Will those murdered in Auschwitz whose ashes are there also serve in this Cyber-Army?  What do you think the Ganges would look like, with thousands of years of cremated people floating there? 

Oh, let's not worry about such horrifying images as that of a Cyber Anne Frank or Mahatma Gandhi. Didn't you cry during Death in Heaven?  That is more important than logic.

I digress to say that recently I've been involved in something of a Facebook fight with a Sherlockian who told us that she doesn't care if the resolution to how Sherlock faked his death is ever revealed.  This was a plus, like a magician's trick that need not be explained.   Well, Sherlockians and NuWhovians have that in common: they never care to think about whether any of what they see is 'logical' in the old-school meaning of the term, so long as it made them 'feel' something. 

I simply hated Death in Heaven.  Every soul-sucking, brain-draining, bombastic moment of Death in Heaven.  Well, there was ONE moment that had me cheering...



Say Goodnight, Osgood...

I've always hated Osgood (and by the way, is Osgood her FIRST name or her LAST name?  Riddle me that!).  Two episodes and she's looked on as some sort of Doctor Who ICON.  Screw Osbad and the Zygon she rode in on.   For Death in Heaven's sake, Sara Kingdom was on Doctor Who longer. 

I think KATARINA was on Doctor Who longer, and she was killed off in her second story!

Seriously, why is this...thing...so beloved?  What purpose did she have apart from being a cosplayer?  She didn't do anything either here or in The Day of The Doctor except express glowing admiration toward the Doctor and dress up like him.  Apart from the fact she uses an inhaler and has a prettier sister, can anyone tell me anything about her that makes her interesting? Important? Relevant?  Worth me caring one bit over her death?

Truth be told, I cheered when The Tranny vaporized her.  I delayed meeting a friend for coffee just to see Osbad wiped out.  I even gave Death in Heaven an extra point just for that (and might give it another for wiping out the idiotic Addison too). 

While watching, I wrote "appalling" at least three times in my notes.  The final comment for this episode was "I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M WATCHING THIS!" (and yes, it was all in caps, and note that I am writing on paper while taking notes). 

We still have a lot of the things that Steven Moffat specializes in.  The dead coming back to life (from the Cybermen being the resurrected dead down to the Afghan kid).  Love basically saving the day.  "Love is a promise, not an emotion", the Doctor observes.  It's Danny's love for Clara that stops Missy's idiotic plan (even by the Simm bonkers Master standard).   The boyfriend being a pathetically wimpy figure.

Poor Anderson. I have never felt so badly for an actor as I did for Anderson, who while nowhere the best actor around simply deserved better.  Seeing him in that Cyber-suit, crying, well, you just wonder if either Moffat or NuWhovians are capable of coherent thinking.  As I observed, how convenient that Danny is one of only two Cybermen NOT to lose their human emotion (the other being whatever perversity was alleged to be the Brigadier).

Speaking of the Cyber-Brig, this many NuWhovians insist that this is some sort of loving tribute.  Really?  You think turning one of the best characters Doctor Who ever created into a Cyber-Zombie forever condemned to fly about is a TRIBUTE?  If I were Nicholas Courtney's family, I'd be enraged that his character has been reduced to a Cyberman.  Why not make Sarah Jane Smith into a Dalek?  I'm sure THAT would be an even greater tribute to both Sarah Jane and Elisabeth Sladen. 

GROTESQUE!  Simply GROTESQUE!  Given that most NuWhovians have very little knowledge of the Brigadier they probably do think it's all beautiful, but for those of us who know of the Brigadier's importance in Doctor Who, it's a sad and sorry end to a real Doctor Who icon (as opposed to the pathetic Osgood). 

Anderson at least has an excuse of a lousy script to explain his lousy performance.  Jenna Coleman doesn't.  She is nowhere near a good-enough actress to have convinced me for one second that she was the Doctor.  I knew it was all fake, and if anyone thought for a mini-second that Clara Oswald never really existed and that she was the Doctor, then your lobotomies went much better than expected. 

Death in Heaven was so appalling in terms of Coleman that she managed to go DOWN on my Worst Companions List, moving from Number 10 to Number 6.

"Danny's a Cyberman, and he's crying.  Doctor, he feels it.  He's crying".  That line, spouted badly by the always reliably-bad Coleman, should have sent people into howls of laughter, not tears. 

As if that wasn't bad enough, why is Steven Moffat determined to have us hate Clara?  "Either you help me or you leave me alone," Clara shouts at the Doctor when he refuses to help her fix Danny's emotion inhibitor.  First, YOU called HIM!  Second, that made her look like a be-atch and a self-centered prig. 

Poor Capaldi.  You have a good actor stuck in such a hideous nightmare of a story and struggling to make any of this slightly plausible.  He still has to be stuck doing Matt Smith: calling Danny "P.E." and referring to a general as 'Man Scout' because his uniform made the Doctor think of a scout troop.  However, no actor, no matter how good, could possibly have made the whole "Doctor leaping into the TARDIS as he is falling from the bowels of an exploding plane" work. 

Not since the Eleventh Doctor rode UP the side of a building on a motorbike in The Bells of Saint John have we seen something so patently appalling.   It was Doctor Who meets James Bond (and Murray Gold's Satanic score just makes this particular sequence even worse). 

I cringed seeing the Doctor fall to the TARDIS.  Just bad.

Gomez I figure was asked to be camp-crazy, and as such she was a success.  I'm at a total loss to figure why so many insist she's the best Master since Roger Delgado.  Delgado was never camp.  Delgado was never deliberately silly.  Delgado was never going to describe the Doctor as his 'boyfriend'.  Delgado never looked intentionally ridiculous. 

Flying Cybermen!
The Doctor as President of Earth!
Transgendered Time Lords!
Mistress Poppins!
The Brigadier turned into a Cyberman!

This isn't Doctor Who.  This is shit, plain and simple.  In that regard, it's perfect really for the target audience, and I'll leave it at that. 

Death in Heaven has done something I would have sworn on my life was simply impossible.

It has made Love & Monsters look like The Caves of Androzani by comparison.  I always thought Love & Monsters would or could never be challenged as simply the Worst Doctor Who Story of All Time. 

In that regard, I vastly underestimated the monster known as Emmy-winning writer Steven Moffat.  I have given a 0/10 to two stories (Love & Monsters and the recent In the Forest of the Night).  However, with Death in Heaven Parts 1 & 2 (Dark Water/Death in Heaven), I find myself doing something I have NEVER done or even considered doing.

I found a Doctor Who story that managed to earn a NEGATIVE score. 

It was so low that it scored less than zero.  That's right...LESS THAN ZERO.

It brings to mind what the late great Roger Ebert said about Freddy Got Fingered, which I have seen (against my will) and can vouch for it being perhaps the worst movie I've ever seen.  What he said about the Tom Green masterpiece, I say about Death in Heaven.

"This (episode) doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This (episode) isn't the bottom of the barrel. This (episode) isn't below the bottom of the barrel. This (episode) doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels."

The best way to describe Death in Heaven Parts 1 & 2 (Dark Water/Death in Heaven) is to quote a review for Two-Faced Woman, coincidentally or not Greta Garbo's final film.

"It was almost as shocking as

seeing your mother drunk".

I'm sorry.  I'm so sorry.

-2/10

Next Episode: Last Christmas

I've put this up already, but it's just so good. I figure why not a repeat...

The Mistress of The Doctor

STORY 255.1: THE WRATH OF MISSY 
PART 1 (DARK WATER)

*Author's Note: As per tradition two-part stories earn one grade.  In a break from tradition, each part will be reviewed separately, with the second review having the final score.

Well, the big reveal as to Missy's true identity was come upon us.  A Big Reveal that left the Moffia stunned.  In other words, only those who are generally dim-witted were shocked, SHOCKED by something that had been correctly predicted months ago.  Dark Water, the first part of a two-part season finale, has something going for it.  I'm not sure what exactly that is though: more bastardization of Canon, more "the dead really aren't dead" storylines that writer/showrunner Steven Moffat recycles, or just a set-up to an even greater fiasco than most of this season (barring one or two episodes) has already been.

It does have, however, a delightful puzzle, one that may never be answered if Doctor Who co-star Jenna Coleman really does end up leaving after either Death in Heaven or the upcoming Christmas Special Last Christmas, but that's for later.  If I'm honest, this is not a review I want to write.  I'm not Kyle Anderson at The Whorist...I mean, Nerdist.  I don't think Steven Moffat's farts smell like Chanel Number 5.  Dark Water was more than a disappointment, far more than an embarrassment to all that had come before.  It was a sad thing to see.  Simply sad.

Clara (Coleman) was happily chatting with her boyfriend, Danny Pink (Samuel Anderson, no relation to Kyle that I know of), about to really push the idea that she loves him, when the phone goes silent.  Danny was hit by a car and killed, leaving Clara devastated.  Fortunately for her, she has access to a time machine.  In a story thread NOT similar at all to the Ninth Doctor story Father's Day, Clara tries to get the Doctor (Peter Capaldi) to go back and save Danny.  If it means virtually drugging him and throwing the TARDIS keys into a volcano (which destroys them), so be it.  It doesn't matter that the TARDIS can be opened by a snap of the fingers (which Clara herself has done) or that throwing all the keys leaves the Doctor AND Clara stranded on this volcano (wonder if she thought this plan out completely).  Why be bothered by such trivialities?

In any case, this was all a dream, so no worries.  The Doctor then whisks Clara to where Danny is, for their timelines are connected.  They end up in The Nethersphere, where they meet the Mobile Intelligence Systems Interface, or Missy (Michelle Gomez).  Missy plants a big kiss on the Doctor, part of the greetings.  They then meet Dr. Chang (Andrew Leung) who introduces them to the 3W Company, and the shock of what 3 W stands for...Don't Cremate Me.  The dead, apparently, remain conscious and are fully aware of what is happening to them. 

Well, while the Doctor and Clara are getting the full tour, Danny has to deal with Nethersphere bureaucracy thanks to Seb (Chris Addison), his post-mortem case worker.  Seb informs Danny that he is dead and that someone wants to see him.  It is the Afghan boy he killed in war, the boy who is visibly frightened by him.

At this juncture, how does the little Afghan boy, who I figure doesn't speak English and certainly doesn't know Danny's name, know whom to ask for?  Did he just say, "I want to talk to the man who killed me?"  Yet I digress.

Well, the Doctor won't accept the idea of Heaven, the Nethersphere, whatever this place is, but some things he can't deny, even if he senses he's missing something.  While Clara and Danny chat via cyber-phone (with Clara not accepting that it's the REAL Danny she's talking to), he feels Missy's heart(s) beat and sees she's in possession of Time Lord technology.  He also finds that those dead incased in 'dark water' are turning into Cybermen!  Rushing about, he finds himself running out of St. Paul's Cathedral, where the Cyber-Army is about to strike London...again.

He even discovers who Missy is.  He insists he doesn't know, but it is soon made clear.  Missy is short for Mistress.  After all, she couldn't keep calling herself...The Master, now could she?

Well, Missy turns out to be The Master.  This apparently made NuWhovians gasp in shock, despite widespread speculation that Missy would be short for Mistress and Mistress is the female term for Master.  A lot of people are either thrilled or outraged with the transgender Time Lord.  Those who are excited think this is 'progress', and that a female Doctor is soon on her way.  Those who are infuriated think this is obscene, and that a female Doctor is soon on her way.

Here is my reaction...

Frankly, I reject the idea that Time Lords are essential hermaphrodites.  I've said so repeatedly.  Now we are stuck with the idea that Time Lords can change sex, though for what purpose no one can answer.

I know many people now insist that Doctor Who has firmly established that Time Lords can go from male to female (even though this has never been seen in any story).  Technically speaking, it STILL hasn't been shown, for we didn't see the Master regenerate into a woman or into anything really.  I also would remind people of The Keeper of Traken.  Here, the Master, on his final regeneration, essentially steals the body of Tremas (yes, it's an anagram of 'Master', but I'm not going to get hung up on former producer John Nathan-Turner's idiocies, which now makes Moffat's merry adventures look like Hinchcliffe-level brilliance by comparison).  Who is to say the already bonkers Master, last seen fighting the Time Lords at The End of Time, didn't kill some poor Mary Poppins impersonator and steal HER body?   At least I have a way out of this most distressing circumstance, until the Doctor regenerates into a woman and I quit watching (assuming I don't quit sooner).

Dark Water really is a bad Doctor Who story.  We get cop-out after cop-out (oh, it was all a dream, oh, the Doctor doesn't realize Missy is real).  We get bad moments (all of Addison's scenes, which were not funny, and the question, 'Doctor Who?' popping up again...is Moffat so bereft of ideas?!).   We get moments that don't make sense.  And I quote, "That's rare.  That never happens."  This is what either Seb or Dr. Chang says when Clara calls Danny.  That is a contradiction in terms.  Something can either be rare (in that it happens SOMETIMES) or it can NEVER HAPPEN.  It can't be both.



We also get some of the same tropes we've seen from Moffat, in particular his pathological fear of death.  "You know how people are scared of dying?  Like, everyone?" Dr. Chang tells Clara and the Doctor.  This is peculiar, given that I thought Listen established that it was monsters under the bed that was the most fundamental fear.  One wonders what martyrs or the 300 Spartans thought, because they didn't look like they were afraid of death.  All those Christian martyrs at the Roman Coliseum, what fools they were not to realize they should have been afraid of death!

Moffat really goes all out to put his idea about death and how to overcome it, but with Dark Water he puts something else in: clear continuity error.  Now, it is all possible that Moffat may provide answers to how the following will be done, but the NuWhovians and Sherlockians I've talked to have flat-out told me they don't care how something is done.  One Sherlockian has told me she doesn't care if we never learn how Sherlock Holmes on Sherlock faked his death.  It's like a magic trick, she says, and doesn't need it explained.  I have long argued no explanation is possible, but fortunately the Moffia really don't care to have answers.

Listen had Danny and Clara's descendant, Orson Pink.  Dark Water has Danny dead.  NOW, while it is possible Clara may be pregnant by now, how exactly can she prove the child is Danny's?  He's dead and has no known living relatives (hence, his stay at the boys' home).  Furthermore, even if Clara does give birth to a child, regardless of sex, why would said child carry the surname Pink?  She isn't married to a Pink and has no legal proof that the father was a Pink.  Clara's love child would carry the name "Oswald", so how would Orson Pink, direct descendant of Danny (who is dead before his heir is possibly conceived) come about? 

Riddle me that, Steve.

Rajiv, DON'T CREMATE ME!
DON'T CREMATE ME!

What is really surprising is his take on cremation.  Moffat has us think the dead are conscious after death and that cremation is painful to them.  I wonder what the British Hindu community thought about that new turn.  Cremation is part of the Hindu faith, and here is this European telling them in essence they are torturing the souls of the Mahatma and Indira and Rajiv Gandhi, not to mention the billions of Hindus long past over four thousand years.  I know there were protests to the BBC, and I can imagine a child who just watched Grandmama roasted horrified that Doctor Who now tells him Mummy and Daddy tortured Granny, but I'm just curious both what people thought about this and why Moffat has a continuing obsession with death (and how to avoid it)?

So many  things don't make sense.  How did the 3W founder, Dr. Skarosa, who him/herself is encased in a vat of Dark Water, find Time Lord technology?  How did the Doctor know that Clara was going to try to use sleeping patches on him to get her way? (And by the way, am I the only one who thought Clara was a selfish b*tch and a dumb one too for pulling this stunt)?  Why is the Doctor bothered about bringing back Danny from the dead?  It's not like there is anything like a fixed point in time nowadays, given how timey-wimey things are on Doctor Who.

The performances are also nothing to write home about.  Leung, who appears briefly and I don't think was in any other episodes, not only looked like the British Edward Nygma from Gotham,  was simply not on screen long enough for me to care.  Same goes for Anderson, whose weepy Danny struck me more as annoying and pathetic than as worth my sympathy or tears.  Furthermore, why couldn't Danny give Clara information that would confirm who he was (you know, apart from plot contrivances)?  Coleman was nothing here.

I know a lot of people love Gomez's Missy, but I never thought she was any good.  She struck me as camp gone mad, another 'Crazy Master' and nowhere near the serious threat we're suppose to imagine.  I know Roger Delgado would never stoop so low as to be virtually pantomime and certainly never expressed any desires for his old rival.  I thought she was silly and over-the-top, a joke from start to finish.  Why do people serious think Gomez was any good, what with her Mary Poppins get-up and broad hysterics?  Maybe Gomez is a good actress, but this didn't show it.  Granted, she was working with garbage, but she's been this way for some time, so I'm the only one not impressed.

I feel for Capaldi.  I think again he did what he could with the role, but nothing could save this blunder. 

Another thing that I wasn't impressed with was Rachel Talalay's direction.  I detest visuals that call attention to themselves, and when Clara emerges from the smoke, that shot, rather than beautiful, was almost parody. 

In the end, I found it all not so much terrible (though it was that), but boring.  Boring it was.  Dark Water, particularly whenever we meet Seb, made me think of all things R.I.P.D. with Ryan Reynolds and Jeff Bridges.  It's never a good sign when Doctor Who reminds you of one of the worst movies you've seen.

One thing we all did learn from Dark Water is just what an egoist Steven Moffat is (as if we didn't know already).  "Cybermen from Cyberspace.  Now why has no one ever thought of that before?" Missy tells the Doctor when revealing her plans.  I can hear Moffat thinking what a genius he is for coming up with that one.

I don't give two separate grades to two-parters, so the final score won't be announced until the review for the second part, Death in Heaven.  If I WERE to give Dark Water a score, I'm tempted to say...

0/10  

Next Episode: Dark Water/Death in Heaven