**spoiler alert:
this article assumes you have full knowledge of the contents of the Doctor Who
50th Anniversary Special. If
you have not seen it yet (unlikely if you are a fan of the show), turn back
now**
Well, it’s official- with last
month’s premiere of “The Day Of The Doctor,” Doctor Who, which can rightfully stand next to Star Trek and Star Wars
as one of the most extensive and influential sci-fi series of all time, reached
the golden age of 50. I cannot count
myself a “true” Whovian, as my experience with the show only extends to the
first five seasons of the reboot, but I can definitely say that I am a big fan
of our favorite bow-tie-wearing, fez-nipping, screwdriver-waving time
traveler. I’m a sucker for any show,
book, or movie that plays around with big, out-there, universe-sized ideas and
themes, and Doctor Who, even at its
campiest, is chock full of curiosity-tickling concepts.
I don’t think it’s possible to
understate how hugely anticipated this birthday special was- I am friends with
a number of Class A Whovians, people whose metric for how good each episode is
centers around exactly how many tears they shed by the end of it, so my
Facebook feed was filled with updates for nearly every major reveal involving
the special for at least 6 months prior to it actually happening. With all this build-up, even my distanced and
less-invested expectations were raised fairly high by the time it finally aired
(after which my feed once again exploded with statuses describing “feels,”
“squeeees,” and “OMG WTF’s.” So after
all that build-up, when I finally sat down to watch the special a few days after
it aired, what did I think? Well…..
Okay, let me say up front that I did
enjoy the special a lot- although it would have benefited immeasurably from the
presence of Eccleston, it was great to see Tennant back as the 10th,
I really like Matt Smith’s Doctor, John Hurt was an excellent bring-in as the
“first” Doctor, and having “The Moment” take the form of Rose in order to
connect with the Doctor’s future was a clever way to bring back Billie Piper, while
also showing off her acting chops by giving her a role to play other than that
of a love-struck companion. The effects
were great, and it also reenergized my desire to push through the remaining two
seasons of Smith that I have not had the time to pursue in recent months.
However (and I realize merely
voicing this will inflame a great many devoted Whovians), if I am to be honest,
I have to admit that I found the special somewhat unsatisfying, no better or
worse than your standard Who Christmas
special- fun and diverting, certainly, but nothing worth breaking the piggy bank
over. It was certainly nothing worth six
months of “this is everything my personal life has built up to” hype.
One issue I had involves the show’s
obsession with always having some
sort of weird alien with a way over-the-top design as the reason behind
whatever happens to be going on in a given episode. Not that there’s always a problem with that-
it’s a sci-fi show about a space/time traveler, so the show needs its
aliens. I get that. What I take issue with is how often a great
set-up or an episode with a flawless first and second act is partially, and
sometimes completely, marred by the big, revealed alien being something so
ludicrous-looking that all the tension, fear, and drama they’d spent 30-40
minutes carefully crafting deflates like a hot-air balloon in a Pokemon episode
(I plan to tackle a particularly egregious example of this in a future post-
but not until after Oscar season ends and my inevitable rage fits subside). I’m beginning to suspect that the show’s
growing budget has been tied to one of those awful “spend it or lose it”
contract clauses that force directors to regularly stretch x amount of pounds
over sets and aliens in episodes that might not necessarily need it.
The 50th special, sadly, is a prime example of this- the
designs of the aliens and monsters in the show range all across the
quality/subtlety spectrum, and in this case, the Zygons rank alongside the
Slitheen and the Cybermen as one of the show’s more distracting antagonists. The idea of shapeshifting aliens that can
make themselves near-indistinguishable from the humans they copy is a great
idea for providing a suitable threat to the Doctor. But why does their original form have so many
suckers? Even if that’s how they get the
DNA data they need to change shape, why have them all over the body? Why not do the suckers and skin-color using
makeup instead of sticking the extras in massive body-suits they can obviously
barely move in? Yes, this is a
relatively minor issue, but it’s one I have with an unfortunately large number
of episodes. Doctor Who has so much great writing behind it that it can easily
afford to go smaller more of the time. Some
of the best episodes I’ve yet seen, works like “Blink,” “Midnight,” and “The
Waters of Mars,” have the most minimal and least-intrusive costume and makeup
designs in the show. Just because there
needs to be aliens doesn’t mean they always have to be AAAAALIEEEEENS.
While we’re on the issue of disappointing
reveals bruising solid set-up, let’s talk about the decision to actually show
part of the Time War. This War has
loomed big-time over the revival of the series, especially during the
melancholy-heavy Tennant years, and its aftereffects- the continued animosity
between the Daleks and the Doctor, all the planetless alien refugees who seek
to invade Earth not out of malice, but simply out of desperation, etc.- have
driven whole reams of the show’s plot.
The mystique surrounding it has only been increased by how little we
know about what actually happened- we know it nearly ripped apart all of
reality, and we know that the Doctor was forced to end it by basically sealing
away both the Daleks and his own people into a time pocket (which comes back to
haunt him at the end of Tennant’s days, as we all know). Given how little we know about what happened,
and with a name like Time War, how could you not feel compelled to conjure up
the strangest and most indescribable images whenever it’s mentioned? The imagination of the mind is always far
more interesting than anything you could possibly show, and the Time War is no
exception. I was immensely disappointed
when we finally get scenes from the end of the war itself, and it’s just your
standard spaceships and ground forces firing lasers at each other. Boooooooriiiiiiiing.
This inclusion of the Time War in
the episode’s plot brings me to the biggest and yet most nebulous concern I
have with the show, and it’s been growing ever since Smith came on board. After seeing this special, the first season
with Smith, and watching a few reviews about what’s gone down in Seasons 6 and
7, I think the show is starting to loop around on itself a bit too much. There are only so many times the Doctor can
literally save reality itself before it starts to get a touch blasé. All of the known universe has now been
brought to the brink of annihilation and back again so many times, I’m
surprised every living thing in it is not suffering from the unending effects
of severe whiplash. Doctor Who has, of
course, never been a doctrinal show, and has changed its internal rules whenever
it has the whim to do so. Also, what
brings us back time and again, in the end, is the Doctor himself, and how
incredibly fun he is to watch, whether or not what’s happening around him makes
sense or not, or whether it even bothers to be exciting- there have been plenty
of episodes before that would have been utter snooze-fests without Tennant or
Eccleston or Smith around to chew the scenery.
I get all that, and I am still on
board with this show, but as I said earlier, this show really can take more
risks than Moffat seems willing to take at the moment. It can branch out of universe/reality level
threats more often. Give us some
adventures outside of Britain. Give us
more stuff on other planets. Or keep it
small- keep showing us famous figures and eras where there’s some sinister
mystery going on. But not every season
has to end with all of history and the future and the past and every pocket
alternate dimension about to be destroyed by more Daleks. Don’t always try to throw absurd monster
designs in our face for cheap jump-scares.
While those larger, more general
problems spoiled parts of the special for me, however, what really threw me
off-kilter was its stunning lack of an ending regarding, oh, about half the
entire episode. The entire plot thread
that brings the Doctors together is another threat from this new alien species
that wants to take Earth away from the humans.
Through a clever bit of technical trickery, Tennant and Smith cause the
aliens and humans to forget who is who, to make sure a proper settlement is
reached. Then they run off to stop the
Time War together, and……that’s it. No
word on what happens with the aliens. No
word on whether or not the Doctors try to spirit away all the horrible weapons
Torchwood 2.0 has stashed away in a vault.
No resolution whatsoever.
Nothing.
This was particularly disturbing to
me because, for all of its flaws, for all the criticisms that can be fairly
leveled at the show, the one thing you could never accuse it of was writing so
lazy that an episode failed to resolve its own story. Even the most absurd, out-of-left-field plots
this show has dregged up were tied together in some way come the 45-minute mark
(90 minutes if it was a two-parter).
This is the first time that, to my knowledge, an episode or special was
so uninterested in itself that it actually just sort of stopped and didn’t even
try to provide some form of
conclusion. It was the same prickly
sense of fear I felt at the end of Into Darkness, when the screen may as well have started flashing the words,
“Sorry, we just gave up!” in glowing red letters.
I realize I’m being rather on harsh
on this special, but I do so because I care.
No show can last half a century without doing a lot of things
right. I’m merely using this special as
an opportunity to express my thoughts on where I’d like to see the show go in
the future, especially since we have a new Doctor coming up, which will be a
good opportunity to freshen things up a bit.
Until then, keep watching, and keep enjoying, the adventures of the
strange and silly man in the policebox. I know I will!
-Noah
Franc
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