The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances

Abbey Road. My mother’s pasta. My girlfriend Ellen. Amelie. The colour blue. Freesias. The Time Traveler’s Wife. Any film score by Thomas Newman. Rachmaninov’s Paganini Rhapsody. And now, The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances. What do these things have in common, you ask? They are all things that, to me, make life worth living. Proof that, sometimes, God just gets things exactly right.

Mauve alert. Yes, mauve. We are in the presence of greatness. From the opening moments of The Doctor Dances, it’s clear that a lot of care has been taken with this story. The script is immediately funny, and we’re excited by the chase through the vortex that accompanies the familiar ‘sting’. When the TARDIS materialises, Rose finally makes reference to the fact that they’re always landing on Earth. With this and her comments about ‘scanning for alien tech’, Steven Moffat is just continuing the digs in the ribs that he started with The Curse of Fatal Death, his brilliant little Comic Relief effort that dragged me firmly back into the world of Who five years ago.

This warm, fuzzy feeling continues when the Doctor jumps up on a stage in a crowded nightclub and makes everyone laugh, while Rose follows a weird boy in a gasmask and is dragged up into the sky by a rope attached to a barrage balloon. (Why did she even grab the rope before looking up to see what it was attached to? Hang on, who cares?) So she’s hanging in the air, and we get a stunning view of the London skyline as it transforms into something far more sinister… and strangely familiar. Oh dear. This is a London air raid. A beautiful one. And I mean beautiful. Never have I been so impressed by the art direction on this show. It looks like a painting – a masterpiece – but at the same time feels deadly realistic.

Er… until she’s beamed up into an invisible spaceship. Oh well. Who cares about realism when we’ve got a ship like this? And the delightful John Barrowman as “Captain” Jack Harkness? I’ll be honest, I didn’t expect to like Jack at all, especially considering all the bad publicity the character has had. But what can I say? The guy’s all charm. John Barrowman really knows how to carry off this role, and it’s actually refreshing to hear an American accent, just like it was in Dalek. The guy looks great too, in his WWII uniform.

Meanwhile, the Doctor talks to a cat, a voice on an unconnected phone, and a mysterious woman who vanishes. When that TARDIS phone rang, I got more chills than those “phone ringing” scenes in The Matrix or Scream. And isn’t this dialogue all terrific? I laughed when the Doctor picked up the phone and said, “Hello?” Then I laughed harder when he said “This is the Doctor speaking.” And even harder with “How may I help you?” Okay, this series has already had its fair share of laughs so far, but this is the first time a comedy writer has had his hand at it. And he’s just done so well. This stuff is funnier than Buffy. And it also tugs at your heart-strings, in every scene with Nancy and her homeless kids. There’s so much affection here, it’s easy to just believe they’re all real people. Florence Hoath is terrific as Nancy – I wish she’d been my nanny.

Up in the air, Jack and Rose are having champagne next to Big Ben. And this is just so beautifully shot, especially when Jack does his “flash” move and lights the clock-face up. Who wouldn’t be swept off their feet by this guy, with his ship, his gadgets, his uniform, his Glenn Miller, and his tendency to “scan for alien tech”? But things are getting more serious now, with this mysterious child in the gasmask following people and crying for his mummy. This stuff is scarier than Hinchcliffe. Via Nancy, the Doctor searches out Doctor Constantine, a brilliant turn by Richard Wilson, who at no point I expected to cry out that he didn’t believe it. Testament, really, to Wilson’s acting ability.

What are these creatures in the gasmasks? Not dead? Physical injuries as plague? You can just tell the explanation – when it eventually comes – will be brilliant. Perhaps not in the hands of a lesser writer, but I trust Moffat. First of all, though, Constantine is taken by the plague himself, in what I believe to be the scariest moment in the history of this programme. I’m twenty-three years old, and when his face distorted into the shape of a gasmask, I wanted to rush and hide behind the sofa. Thankfully, Rose and Jack showed up and the Doctor began to ruminate. “DNA is being rewritten,” he mutters, “by an idiot.” Told you. The explanation is already intriguing. And of course Jack is a con-man – who didn’t figure this one out? Anyway, we’re now up to our obligatory cliffhanger. True, it’s another “surrounded by monsters” cliffhanger, but really, how many others are there? Scary ones, anyway? And it just gets scarier, when we reach Room 802, and hear that chilling recording from the child. The child that’s right behind them.

Right, cue a runaround in the hospital. Fantastic! And throw in some great jokes about the sonic screwdriver, and you’ve got a perfect chase. Too bad that git Jack is able to beam out of there… sometimes you just can’t adore a guy who’s got all the answers. But once he’s out of the picture, we’re left – finally – with the Doctor and Rose again. I discovered at this point how much I enjoyed seeing these two together. It was sad to know they were soon to be parted, especially when Rose teased the Doctor about… ahem, dancing. Should’ve expected stuff like this, really, from the writer of Coupling. And surprisingly, I didn’t mind any of it. It was subtle enough, and obvious enough, if you get my meaning.

Finally we’re out of the hospital, and we’re at the crash site. This for some reason feels like a UNIT story, or even a Troughton story. Nothing wrong with that. When Rose is captured, and we see that scar on her guard’s hand, we know what’s about to come. The soldier’s transformation isn’t as shocking as the first one, but it’s still pretty gruesome. After a little while, things are getting sorted out – via a bit of bickering from the Doctor and Jack, and some musings from Nancy about the Earth’s future. She didn’t know we’d won the war, but her comments did make me think about how war had changed us as a people. But never mind that, this is Doctor Who, remember? Back to the action. The Doctor gives us plenty of Doctor-ish exposition about nanogenes – shades of Red Dwarf – and just as they’re surrounded by “empties” again, Nancy steps forward and faces the truth. The child isn’t her brother, he’s her son. So the nanogenes must learn. Thankfully, they eventually do. And as the Doctor says, just this once, everybody lives! Fantastic!

I’m so glad James Hawes is returning to helm the second series, and that Steven Moffat is contributing The Girl in The Fireplace. I can’t wait for these episodes, on the merit of this two-parter, which comes dangerously close to being the best Doctor Who story of all time. Everything in this story just fell into place perfectly. Acting, script, direction, plot, pacing, humour, horror, suspense, music, lighting, art direction… like I said at the beginning, this time, God got it right.

Just this once.