New Earth

And so it finally arrives, the first episode of the second season of the brand new Doctor Who, something which only three years ago would have seemed unthinkable. It has been a hell of a year and I sometimes have trouble reconciling the fact that the Doctor Who I have known for the last twenty years, a guilty pleasure to be confessed to at your peril, the pillar of ridicule by tv and sci fi pundits and a series that has had to claw its way every last inch back to tv, is now gasp, the height of critical and commercial success. In short I should be doing cartwheels that twenty years of unswerving devotion has been paid off, many would say a Who fan has never had it so good. Unfortunately last year also brought the sobering revelation that this new series of Doctor Who was not produced as many would have hoped as a serious sci fi show that would take its rightful place alongside Star Trek, Babylon 5 etc, but as a piece of 2005 entertainment for kids designed squarely to sit alongside the playstation, Yu Gi Oh cards and the likes of Ant and Dec. That it has been such a sterling success goes to prove that Russell T Davies probably knows a lot more about popular tv than I will ever do, so I have become reconciled to the fact that I am going to have to agree to differ over this new series, many love it unconditionally, while I still remain uncomfortably sat on the fence being entertained and irritated in almost equal measure.

As a semi sequel to The End of the World, New Earth carried much of the same strengths and faults of the earlier story. The story once again boasted a superbly realised futuristic enviroment which was on a par with a lot of stuff offered in recent feature films, I can only take my hat off to the BBC for the slick look that they have given Doctor Who, which holds court with most of the modern US series. When one thinks about the cheapness of shows such as Neverwhere only 10 years ago, it is remarkable how far things have come. The location more than anything last year evoked the classic Doctor Who setup of something sinister going on under the surface, and with the enigmatic cat like nuns and some weird patients, I thought the story was going to be something pretty special. Unfortunately as was often the case last year, for me the story was marred by far too much camp silliness. The bodyswapping, the rather camp and annoying character of Chip, and various other quips and gags, placed the series once again as a show seemingly targeted at the very young. Many I am sure would disagree, but I still don’t think the humour drama balance is quite right, The Christmas Invasion seemed to be heading in the right direction, but once again the tomfoolery prevalent in this episode sat uncomfortably with the rather bleak nature of the underlying story.

The opening teaser got the story off to a rollicking start, and one could almost sense the anticipation as Rose and the Doctor once again set off into the great beyond. From the opening moments David Tennant filled the shoes of the Doctor effortlessly. While appreciating a lot of what Christopher Eccleston did with the character, at times he seemed to be struggling and when he went off mark he went off badly, sometimes creating a character that was scarcely recognisable as the Doctor. In contrast David Tennant strode through the whole story completely at ease, never for one minute having to try and convince the audience he is the Doctor. As yet he hasn’t had a really great standout script, but on the evidence of the Christmas Invasion and this episode I think the part is in safe hands and I think some of the stuff to come will give him a chance to really shine. Only in the possessed Cassandra scenes did he slightly lose credibility, but probably did the best anybody could with this material.

Billie Piper in contrast seemed somewhat weaker in this episode than usual. Probably because much of the episode was given over to her being possessed by Cassandra, Rose got very few standout moments in her own right.

The return of Cassandra herself was somewhat of a mixed blessing, she was one of the few genuinely amusing camp comic creations from the last series, and her few scenes in her trampoline form where a joy to behold, unfortunately the whole bodyswap idea became very tiresome as it went on and once again seemed to be too much of a divergence from the main thread of the story. The Face of Boe’s return seemed a deliberate setup for a future plot strand, but I for one was glad to see him back. He is without doubt a superbly realised alien creation and it is just a shame he wasn’t given a bit more to do, series 1 had a few false starts on the monster front (I wont mention the Slitheen) but we now seeming to be getting some pretty good and believable aliens, and the Sisters of Plenitude easily put the cheetah people from Survival to shame.

The basic premise of the plague farm and the birth of a new breed of humans was an interesting one, there seemed to be a real good germ of an idea somewhere underneath it all, but it never quite sprouted. Drowned under the frenetic pace and the constant cutting about from one idea and place to another, the poignancy of the message the story seemed to be trying to make about the nature of life and death was lost. This is where I get the notion that Russell T Davies thinks the whole country suffers from attention deficit disorder, he seems so frightened at the notion that the viewer may become bored or turn over to the other side, that there has to be new joke, special effect or big moment every few seconds. While I agree with a lot of his perceptions, it is this worry that is preventing the new series from having many well plotted involving stories. It more often than not feels like we are watching the edited highlights, there is never any chance to build up a sense of mystery, characters such as the Duke are introduced and then dispensed with as the story flits between disparate elements in an attempt to keep the viewer watching. If I am honest I get the impression Russell T Davies concocts his stories a bit like Terrance Dicks said he had to do on the five Doctors, he has a list of ingredients and big set piece moments and the rest is a case of joining up the dots, one very rarely gets the sense of a clear progression from point A to point B. Again Mr Davies probably knows more about modern tv than I do, but this approach is why we have never had a modern equivalent of Genesis of the Daleks or Inferno, these stories grew organically from their respective ideas, gradual unravelling plots not afraid to have a quiet moment or two, one didn’t feel the writers were checking off a list of crowd pleasing ingredients as they went along.

So a somewhat mixed start to the new series: a very confident turn from Tennant in his first full story, a basic solid Doctor Who setup with a great looking location, a good story idea and some interesting characters, all of which unfortunately failed to gell into a cohesive whole, and sprinkled with too much of a camp sugary overcoat to be the standout start to the series it could have been.