{"id":701,"date":"2011-04-24T12:22:08","date_gmt":"2011-04-24T12:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/?p=701"},"modified":"2011-04-24T15:32:21","modified_gmt":"2011-04-24T15:32:21","slug":"so-what-did-i-think-of-the-impossible-astronaut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2011\/04\/24\/so-what-did-i-think-of-the-impossible-astronaut\/","title":{"rendered":"So… What did I think of The Impossible Astronaut"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The last series kicked off with the biggest discontinuity since the 2005 restart which itself was without equal since the series started back 1963. In spring 2010 we got a new Doctor, a new companion, a new producer and a complete new roster of directors. Even in 1970 when Jon Pertwee and colour exploded on to our screen, and when the whole format of the show was changed, we had the return of Lethbridge-Stewart, familiar names credited as writer and script-editor and (for one story only) the same producer as at the end of the previous series.<\/p>\n

This time, for the first time since the programme returned in 2005, we have total continuity from series-to-series. The same TARDIS crew as at the end of the previous series and the same key personnel behind-the-scenes. It\u2019s time for a change.<\/p>\n

Doctor Who is now so firmly embedded in the BBC that the problem is not how will we cope when the programme is only on for one quarter of the year, it\u2019s how to avoid over-saturation. With various spin-offs, specials (Christmas and charity) and huge media coverage leading up to each new series, canny producers now look for ways to ration the supply so that withdrawal kicks in and we are clamouring for our next fix. Russell created the 2009 \u201cGap Year\u201d for this purpose and now Moffat gives us the 2011 \u201cDivided Season\u201d. Instead of this \u201chit\u201d lasting us all the way to July, it\u2019s going to abruptly terminate in early June and leave us dangling until the autumn, when if we\u2019re not very lucky it\u2019s going to be up against X Factor.<\/p>\n

So, one paper-thin but hugely enjoyable Christmas Special and one tissue-paper thin and instantly forgettable (hah!) Comic Relief skit later, and Series Six is finally here. Is it any good?<\/p>\n

Oh, how I hate to prejudge two-parters. Um. Much of it is very good indeed, but I have concerns to say the least about the Moffat method. The good first of all\u2026<\/p>\n

The regular cast are on sparkling form. Rory the Roman, now with Arthur Darvill\u2019s name firmly embedded in the new bejazzled titles, manfully shoulders the burden of carrying the exposition \u2013 not so much for we viewers as for guest star Mark Sheppard aka Canton Everett Delaware III aka Romo Lampkin off of Battlestar Galactica. Alex Kingston is still having a marvellous time as Dr River Song, setting out the rules which Rory will no doubt obediently follow and which Amy will no doubt break as soon as possible. Karen Gillan brings both joy and pain as well as gravitas when she brilliantly swears an oath of fealty to the Doctor, invoking fish custard to prove her worth. And Matt Smith continues to find hidden avenues to explore as he switches from ebullient foolishness to heart-stopping severity without apparently changing gears. His casting was an absolute masterstroke.<\/p>\n

And there\u2019s some fun stuff in the White House, with Stuart Milligan, so irritatingly unfunny in the otherwise splendid Jonathan Creek, making a decent fist of Nixon \u2013 not quite an uncanny portrayal but more convincing than Ian MacNeice as Churchill last year, not that that\u2019s saying much. And I love, love, love the Forget-Me-Trons, a brilliant spin on Moffat\u2019s greatest triumph, the Weeping Angels, but in their own way far creepier, and in their execution of Joy, far more sinister killers.<\/p>\n

But Toby Haynes who did so well with last year\u2019s two-part finale seemed to be off his game once or twice. The American location are gorgeous, but he fumbles the hugely important death of the Doctor scene, keeping the spaceman out of shot too long as the Doctor\u2019s friends huddle around his body, and \u2013 until the moment of execution \u2013 just has Amy and The Silent stare pointlessly at each other in the bathroom, as the tension ebbs away.<\/p>\n

Now let\u2019s talk about plotting.<\/p>\n

Steven Moffat is a very clever man, of that there is no doubt at all. And he and Doctor Who are a perfect fit. Not only is he a devoted fan, he is a perfect choice to build on that fannish body of knowledge with the kind of more sophisticated storytelling which Russell primed us to expect. However, I worry that his love of puzzles and his love of time-travel are slowly starting to steer him away from where Doctor Who\u2019s best stories are actually to be found.<\/p>\n

Time paradoxes, a long-time staple of science fiction of all kinds, have only rarely featured in Doctor Who. In the vast majority of classic stories, travel in time simply delivers the Doctor to the start of the adventure and then takes him to the next one at the end. Only in Day of the Daleks and Mawdryn Undead is any kind of time travel central to the plot. Even when multiple Doctors meet up, any notion that the Second Doctor might remember the events from the point of view of the First Doctor is cheerfully ignored. (The Five Doctors in particular only really makes sense if one views the role of Doctor as a post from which one retires and which is then taken over by another.)<\/p>\n

In the new series, time travel was used a little more. The moment when I fell in love with nu-Who was the moment when Rose was returned to The Powell Estate a year too late. Stories like Father\u2019s Day, School Reunion and \u2013 of course \u2013 Silence in the Library all use time travel a little more, but all stop short of using it as an intellectual sonic screwdriver: pop back in time and fix it. This problem with giving an impossibly benevolent wizard complete power over time and space is exactly what Moffat himself was spoofing in 1999\u2019s Comic Relief skit The Curse of Fatal Death with the Doctor and the Master stuck in an endless recursive bribing-the-architect loop.<\/p>\n

But what made Curse of Fatal Death so effective was precisely that it was a loving parody. In many ways, it was the episode Moffat thought he\u2019d never get to write \u2013 but the episode he pretty much did write at the end of the last series when Matt Smith appeared with that fez and that mop. And again when he started talk to Sardick from within his own home movie.<\/p>\n

This is just how Steven Moffat\u2019s mind works. And it always has. Playing these kind of formal games with time has always been one of the attractions. But when in Press Gang, we open with a funeral and are told that one of the Junior Gazette journalists has been murdered, and then flash back to the office where the regulars are being held at gun point, then the tension is unbearable, but also the storytelling device is novel. When in Coupling, we play two-points of view simultaneously, the opportunities for comic juxtaposition and irony are tremendous, but also the storytelling device is novel. However, when your lead character is defined by his ability to travel in time, then you don\u2019t get bonus novelty points for playing around with time. In fact, if you\u2019re not careful, you\u2019ll blow up the whole format.<\/p>\n

So, when the Doctor sends himself a message from two hundred years in the future, ensuring that his younger self will be present on the day of his death, it doesn\u2019t feel shockingly game-changing and like \u201canything can happen\u201d. It feels familiar, reheated and tired. Worse than that, when the central point of the episode is presented like a puzzle, then as an audience we sit here trying to figure it out. But we don\u2019t watch Doctor Who instead of solving sudokus. We watch Doctor Who for the adventure of it.<\/p>\n

As I say, this is part one of two, so I will withhold judgement for now. But so far, although there is much, much, much to enjoy here, I worry that Moffat is now working a bit too hard to be a bit too clever and is forgetting that Doctor Who doesn\u2019t have to be complicated to be fun and that it can be complicated in lots of different ways instead of always in the same way.<\/p>\n

PS: Farewell Elisabeth Sladen. You will be missed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The last series kicked off with the biggest discontinuity since the 2005 restart which itself was without equal since the series started back 1963. In spring 2010 we got a new Doctor, a new companion, a new producer and a complete new roster of directors. Even in 1970 when Jon Pertwee and colour exploded on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[18,19],"class_list":["post-701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","tag-doctor-who","tag-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5JY5l-bj","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=701"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":710,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701\/revisions\/710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}