The Empty Child

There haven’t been many episodes this year that I feel would have slotted into the old series very comfortably and this is primarily due to the essential elements that have been crucial to making the new series such a success. The soap opera-ish elements, the fast pace, the kinder budget…had the End of the World been made during JNTs reign I suspect we would be horrified at how embarrassingly cheap and camp it is. The only episode I would happily shift back would be The Unquiet Dead as it was clearly written by a man who wanted to bridge the old and new series with his favourite genre from the Doctor Who’s hey day, the pseudo historical. Well now we have a second episode which I feel encapsulates everything I personally love about the old series, strong witty dialogue, good character interaction, a sense of romance about science-fiction, a fascinating setting and scenes that just would not appear in any other series. And despite all this it also includes so much of what makes RTDs Doctor Who so wonderful too, the sexual tension, amazing effects and the sense of realism that sells the story to you.

This has been my favourite episode of the year so far and I’m glad it came along when it did. After feeling disappointed with Dalek, bored by The Long Game and pissed off with Father’s Day this was something to really sit back and enjoy. I cheered, I whooped, I laughed and I hide behind a pillow…I haven’t enjoyed anything on TV this much since World War Three.

I’d like to get my superficiality out of the way first and talk about Captain Jack. What a babe. Is it just me or is there something extremely attractive about a handsome rogue? John Barrowman plays the right exactly right, charming his way into Rose’s good books so he can pull the wool over her eyes and con her out of a lot of money. Whilst I understand there is some controversy over Jack being bisexual (it’s the end of civilisation as we know it!) and suggesting that RTD has some kind of agenda (hmm, I believe there are some bisexual people about but we cannot possibly have them in Doctor Who because it’s making a statement! Which of course having a straight companion who has a black boyfriend is not! So there!) what I think people should be more worried about is his wedging between the Doctor and Rose. She is clearly head over heels infatuated with Jack and I forsee some glorious tension between the three of them ahead. But for now this dashing, quick witted criminal is a fine innovation for the series, the primary difference between a male lead that does not work (the gorgeous Bruno Langley) and one that does (the gorgeous John Barrowman) is that Barrowman gets to play somebody with an engaging character and a purpose. I know who I feel in love with!

Jack brings out a side in Rose that we have never seen before, that giggling girlie we always try to surpress but unleash when somebody charismatic and charming starts chasing you. And while I can see why the producers would want to make Rose a strong, sensible woman and they have certainly spent enough time dealing with the complexities of being a time traveller AND a daughter/girlfriend but it is now time to let her have some fun. Billie Piper captured my reaction to this episode perfectly in Rose, whipped up in the giddying sights of blitzed out London, swept off her feet by a charming conman, showing a newfound sense of confidence against the Doctor…she really has come into her own. Her scenes outside Big Ben are fantastic, not just because it is audaciously imaginative of itself but because we can see Rose growing up and enjoying her adventures. When Jack lit up Big Ben (probably not the greatest idea in an air raid mate!) I was clapping but playing Glen Miller whilst negotiating and dancing in front of the clock face with German planes whooshing around was inspirational. Could any other series have the confidence and style to even attempt this?

There was a wonderful noir-ish sense to the direction of this episode which helped give it another mask and the return of some graphic imagery in Doctor Who is long overdue. The Autons were not as scary as they once were, the corpses in The Unquiet Dead were counter pointed by some ridiculous characters, the Reapers got on my nerves (because they weren’t adequately explained)…what we need was some truly horrific monsters to get those bed sheets soaked again! And the sight of gas masked victims of the war closing in on the Doctor, Rose and Jack certainly qualifies as some of the freakiest imagery in the series. It is that sense of the unknown again and the loss of any recognisable features, like the mummies and the robots from Tom Baker’s era, these blank staring masks contain something evil and mysterious beneath them that sends the shivers up the spine. Plus capitalising on the Poltergeist horror of the scary child was a stroke of genius, and the constant, begging “Muum-mmmy” emanating from the masks was very scary indeed. You should also take into consideration how well filmed these masked people were, shots such as the tilted close up on the gas masked shadow outside the front door or the close up on eyes of the mask at the climax with no features beneath it, and you have the first successfully shit your pants scary monsters in the new series. And I am glad they took the skull cracking sound effect away from Dr Constantine’s terrifying morph into a gas mask, thanks to the incredible performance by Richard Wilson and the flawless special effects, it was already disturbing beyond belief. The kids must have been terrified!

Talking of the special effects I have to congratulate the Mill for their excellent work in this episode. I have been reading threads of people moaning about how fake war torn London looked in this episode but I have to disagree, for the amount of time and money the FX team have they have done an incredible job of realising the Blitz with a sense of scale and spectacle. Because there is such a sense of romance and excitement to the scenes where Rose is hanging from the balloon I could swallow some blurry matte paintings because it was all so ridiculously entertaining and the bangs and flashes, planes shooting past and dizzying sense of height generated by the special effects only heightened the breathlessness of it all. Perhaps the series should not be glamourising the War so much but when a setting is as vivid and rich as this I shant complain. Thanks to some stunning period detail (including musical numbers which sweep you back to the 1940’s effortlessly), convincing performances and excellent dialogue (“Don’t you eat!” one man cries at the German planes as the they soar overhead at tea time!) I was no longer in 2005 watching the telly but afforded a visit into wartime London.

It was how the episode switched tone so invisibly that reminded me of Buffy during at its peak; how one scene can scare the hell out of you (the POV through the gas mask watching the homeless kids on the street) and next can warm your heart (Nancy feeding the children on stolen food and still reminding them of their manners) and the next a gob smacking visual stomach-flop (Rose standing atop an invisible spaceship in the middle of an air raid). Not only does this keep the episode interesting but it shows what a fascinating mix of genres it can cope with, not just in one series but one episode.

Steven Moffatt should be very proud of this script which is full to bursting with excellent dialogue, the quality of which (ie making me laugh and gasp!) I haven’t heard since World War Three. He allows the Doctor much more Doctor-ish lines than ever before I genuinely got the sense that this was the real ninth Doctor, the one who followed all the others. His chat with the cat in the alley was cute (Hasn’t every Doctor had one of these moments? Despairing at the ability of his companion to wander off!) and there were numerous wonderful scenes with Nancy (especially his romantic summary of the British resistance to German oppression) and his quick fire dialogue with Rose has rarely been better (“Are you sure about that T-shirt?”). Jack and Nancy are afforded real personalities and engaged me immediately and even Dr Constantine, who is barely in two scenes, emerges a strong, sinister character.

However this is still part one of two which is both a curse and a blessing. Everything is fairly frightening at the moment because all we have is the empty child wandering the streets infecting people without an explanation to spoil the mysteriousness of it. Next week will have to try even harder to give me the willies as I fear there may be some disappointing scientific explanation behind everything. This episode definitely has the ‘first episode’ feel that the old series used to capitalise on, without having to please the viewer with answer it can concentrate on setting the scene and going BOO! And with scenes as in your face scary as the gas masked victim jumping up at Rose and the toy monkey coming to life, it succeeds admirably.

Brilliant direction, writing and performances (isn’t Christopher Eccleston’s comedian moment at the microphone wonderful?), this is sharp telly and no mistake. It is episodes like this we will be pointing at in the future when we talk about Doctor Who being re-invented with a BANG!

As I told a good friend, almost orgasmically good.