The End Of The World

The Tardis door needs oiling.

That doesn’t tell you all you need to know about the new Doctor Who, but it’s as good a sign as any of where this series’ heart is.

As “Rose” began, so “The End of the World” continues. It’s fun, flippant fantasy-adventure, with a veneer of science fiction, and that special air of everyday downbeat melancholy that’s been at the heart of British sci-fi for at least fifty years; Quatermass – UFO – Blakes 7 – Hitchhiker’s – Dominick Hyde – Star Cops.

And new Who reminds me at times of several of those shows. But what it’s most like though, is, Doctor Who. That rickety old show, which often needed oiling. Original Who was 25 minutes of Saturday night thrills and chills, with the occasional spill, designed to give the kiddies something to hide from and the adults something to, well, hide from, as often as not, although not always for the same reasons. And, of course, it made sink plungers everywhere the cheapest and scariest toys going.

This Who is all of those things, and, maybe, a couple more. The End of the World is disposable entertainment. It doesn’t feel written to be analysed to death frame by frame on a DVD somewhere (not that that’ll stop us trying). It’s there to be gasped at, laughed at and – perhaps – be a bit scared by, in living rooms not signing rooms, by kids from 8 to 80. Watch it that way, and any viewer, however hardcore their whovian credentials, shouldn’t get their sixth doctor boxer shorts in a twist.

The supposed plot is stripped down, as reviewers say. Which is ‘pretty basic’ to you and me. Paul Cornell commented in SFX that Russell T Davies wasn’t too worried at leaving viewers asking questions, and in TeoTW it shows. Cassandra’s scheme makes superficial sense, but as the script only bothers to sketch it in superficially in approximatelty three lines, one of which is the not terribly subtle “I have shares in your rivals’ companies” this is hardly surprising. Watch it through a couple of times and you’ll soon have questions a plenty, but this story’s not designed for that. Like Original Who, this cherry flavour Who is, plotwise a treat to enjoy between meals.

The visuals are effective, but don’t bear too much scrutiny either. Digital effects are colourful and as bombastic as that great big logo, but they lack subtlety and shading. They do the job, but don’t look too close or you’ll end up not seeing the designs for the pixellations. Costume, models and make up are actually rather better, with the costumes looking like they’re made of something other than the cheapest offcuts, although, aside from the regulars’ outifts, everything does look a bit too much like its just come off a peg in a costume store, rather than been worn a bit.

The music varies too, between workmanlike (the rather uninspired theme reworking) via the acceptable (lots of Moonlighting-esque melancholy piano cues) past the embarrassing (whooo-eee-ooo-eee-ooo sub Men-in-Black eerieness) and finally reaching the sublime (the haunting lament for the Doctor. Or Gallifrey? Or both?). Adding in “real” music, with the tracks highlighting the emotions of characters is fun and effective, but needs to be used very sparingly to not become too gimmicky.

As everyone else has probably said by now, the script is supposed to be the heart of this new Who, and it sets the tone for the show. It goes from the sublime to the ridiculous, often within the space of a single exchange. But it’s here that the real plots Davies is interested in come into focus. The End… is one of the means to a very different end. This show’s not only, maybe not really, about saving the world. It might be about saving the Doctor.

And to drive this plotline, Russel T Davies creates characters he likes, gives them stories of their own, which develop through lines he wants to hear people say and things no-one ever gets the chance to do. Rose gets to phone home from 5 billion years in the future and realise just how she feels about her mum, while we see there’s more to mum then we saw in episode one – even if she seems to have got a new kitchen since the day after the day after tomorrow…

And, like a latter-day Robert Holmes Davies is excellent at creating entertaining exchanges between pairs of characters. Rose and the Doctor already convince as a team. Their relationship has shade and dimension. She gets as cross with him as he does with her. He’s as kind to her as she tries to be to him. He consoles her and she tries to console him. They work. You like them. The Doctor and Jabe, while busy advancing the plot, breathe, literally, on a more adult level, as touching sincerity underlies playful flirtation. Davies creates entertaining individuals too. Cassandra gets good lines. The plumber gets good lines. The Steward gets good lines. A shame they don’t get to interact all that much, though

Through these carefully constructed overarching structures, TeoTW is able to continue the slow reveal of the Doctor’s backstories. This, if it was going to be handled at all, could only be done gradually. Anything else would have been not merely incomprehensibly complex to almost all the audience, but far more importantly, a total waste of the series’ greatest dramatic asset – Just who is the Doctor? How much of that backstory is, as we go on, going to feed in to the later episodes and start to drive plots along is something we must wait for, but with so much effort and thought having gone into the set up, it would be a major surprise – and disappointment – if there are no pay offs somewhere down the line.

The care with which this potential arc is established, and the effort taken to draw the characters is in stark contrast to the lack of depth in the episode’s murder mystery plot. It’s not a whodunnit. And don’t even begin to think about the whytheydunnit because Russell didn’t waste much more than an afternoon on it. It’s there to get the characters, especially the lead characters, plural, to those already legendary last five minutes. It might be the best thing Doctor Who’s ever tried to say. Or it might be a load of mawkish sentimentality. Probably the former, in fact.

But as long as it’s one or the other, there’s something there for the geeks to slather over. And as long as there’s lines about bitchy trampolines there’s something for mum and dad to laugh at. And as long as there’s a blue scottie dog with a tulip for a head getting roasted, there’s summat for the kids too. It’s Doctor Who, you see. At least for as long as they don’t oil that door.