The Doctor has regenerated, with his eleventh incarnation appearing to be younger, more energetic and more improvisational. An unplanned-crash landing in a young girl's back garden leads him to meeting his new companion, Amelia Pond, and a new series of adventures across time and space...including a renewed acquaintance with the mysterious River Song. But cracks through time and space have appeared, and the Doctor has a suspicion that he knows who is causing them...
In 2010 Doctor Who underwent the biggest change since the show had been relaunched five years earlier. Executive producer and head writer Russell T. Davies had departed, along with Tenth Doctor David Tennant. Davies recommended that Steven Moffat succeed him, a fan-cheering choice since Moffat's scripts for Davies had been among the best-received of the era, including Blink, Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, The Girl in the Fireplace and The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances. Moffat would eventually end up staying for seven years and six seasons, the longest run of any Doctor Who producer bar only John Nathan-Turner (who ran the final run of the original show, from 1981 to 1989).
For his first season in charge, Moffat decided to focus on the new companion as much as the new Doctor and created a storyline rooted in time travel, with the Doctor briefly meeting Amy as a young child before a TARDIS misfire means he doesn't meet her again for twelve years, massively affecting her entire life despite the time passing in minutes from his perspective. Moffat also decided to include a season-spanning arc element, much as Davies had done, in the form of mysterious cracks in space and time, radiating outwards from an event in the future. Each time a crack is discovered, the Doctor learns more about the event and towards the end of the season realises that he might be destined to be involved in the creation of the disturbance. Moffat's arc plot is noticeably more omnipresent and more developed than those during Davies' time, which felt more like Easter Eggs which were only properly explained in the season finale. Despite this element, each storyline still stands by itself.
The Eleventh Hour introduces the new Doctor, Amy, and the recurring character of Rory. The episode is fast-paced and a vehicle to show off the new Doctor's cleverness, overwhelming confidence and resolve. It doesn't entirely hang together but is entertaining. The most notable thing about the episode is the absolutely tiny role it gives Olivia Coleman, which felt odd in 2010 and would be unthinkable today.
The Beast Blow, starring Hotel Rwanda and The Wheel of Time's Sophie Okonedo, is a fine morality play with a nice line in creepiness and some enjoyable satire at the idea of the entirety of the United Kingdom being folded into a big spaceship and blasted into space. It's a bit disposable, though.
Victory of the Daleks is a bit of a misfire, wasting some exceptional casting (Ian McNeice as Winston Churchill and Bill Paterson as Professor Bracewell) and some fabulous imagery (Spitfires in space! WWII-themed Daleks!) on a rather contrived story about getting rid of the Davies-era Daleks and "regenerating" them into a new race of the creatures. Unfortunately, the new day-glow Daleks are distinctly underwhelming as a design and were soon phased out in favour of returning to the classic design, leaving the reason for the episode existing as pointless. Still, there's some fun ideas running around here, if not fully realised.
The Time of Angels and Flash and Stone are an effective two-parter, bringing back the Weeping Angels from Blink and being far more creative in how they are used. There's some very creepy imagery, an absolutely outstanding guest performance by a pre-Game of Thrones Iain Glen and some very clever storytelling ideas, which are vintage Moffat.
The Vampires of Venice falls a bit flat, with the promising idea of the Doctor vs. vampires on the streets of 16th Century Venice never really taking off. Some of the episode's ideas feel undercooked. There's some very nice location filming, although not in Venice (with Trogir, Croatia filling in).
Amy's Choice is a potential stone-cold classic, featuring the Doctor and his companions freezing on an inert TARDIS circling a cold star as they try to work out whether that is reality or an alternate one where Amy and Rory are happily married but fighting an invasion of aliens who turn elderly people into zombie-like monsters. Toby Jones gives a great performance, but the writing and pacing is uneven and the final revelation of the "Dream Lord's" identity is rather unconvincing.
The Hungry Earth and Cold Blood by Chris Chibnall form a two-parter which attempts to reintroduce the Silurians to the franchise. Originally debuting in the 1971 serial The Silurians, the titular race are the rightful original masters of Earth, intelligent reptiles who evolved from an offshoot of the dinosaurs before going into hibernation almost 300 million years ago. The original story gave a lot of thorny moral issues as the Doctor struggled on how to find a good outcome for both the Silurians and humanity and Chibnall touches base with that here, but the story never entirely takes off. Neve McIntosh, Robert Pugh and an underused Meera Syal give excellent guest performances but the story ends up feeling too thin to justify a two-part runtime.
Vincent and the Doctor is easily the highlight of the season, thanks to Tony Curran's absolutely barnstorming performance as Vincent van Gogh and a low-key cameo by Bill Nighy. The script by Love, Actually writer-director Richard Curtis is accomplished, and the finale where the Doctor shows Vincent how his work and life have gone on and inspired millions is one of the all-time great Doctor Who scenes. The monster is a little underwhelming and perhaps a tad unnecessary, although it is interesting.
The Lodger has potential as a comedy episode, with the Doctor having to live undercover as an ordinary human in a houseshare. Amusing scenes of the Doctor confusing an electric toothbrush for a sonic screwdriver and being surprisingly excellent at football (reflecting Matt Smith's own past as a youth footballer before a back injury saw him switch to acting) are let down by James Corden's indifferent guest performance.
The concluding two-partner ties together the cracks in time storyline in a manner that can best be described as "deranged." A melange of the Doctor's enemies, River Song, the Roman Empire, a super-prison called the Pandorica and the cracks through time combine into a storyline that features everything including not only the kitchen sink, but the kitchen sink's future self from seven minutes hence. The story sort of hangs together (if you squint a bit) but the failure to explain several story elements feels disappointing (these elements, eventually, get more of an explanation later on). However, this does mark the beginning of the period when Moffat's attempt to tell clever stories about time loops and temporally dislocated events severely risks disappearing up his own posterior.
The fifth series of the rebooted Doctor Who (****) features winning performances by Matt Smith and Karen Gillan and several outstanding episodes, but is let down by several storylines that are a bit too complex and convoluted for their own good. On the plus side there aren't any really awful installments and even the weaker episodes usually have some good ideas floating around. The season is currently available in the UK via BBC iPlayer and in the USA via HBO Max.
- 501: The Eleventh Hour ***½
- 502: The Beast Below ***½
- 503: Victory of the Daleks ***
- 504: The Time of the Angels ****½
- 505: Flesh and Stone ****½
- 506: The Vampires of Venice ***
- 507: Amy's Choice ***½
- 508: The Hungry Earth ***½
- 509: Cold Blood ***½
- 510: Vincent and the Doctor *****
- 511: The Lodger ***½
- 512: The Pandorica Opens ***½
- 513: The Big Bang ***½
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