Time travel is a violent, unnatural, unordered process.
Lightning and fire dominate the opening title sequence, the time vortex reimagined as a brutal, dangerous realm where the Doctor’s wooden box battered and electrified is more coffin than space ship. The Tardis is, more than ever, a character in this play, one that changes itself and locks the Doctor out. It goes where it wants, looks how it chooses, and decides when its ready for the Doctor. The Doctor has lost even his cursory control as his Tardis veers wildly into the future, leaving him as much a passenger of circumstance as his companion. He is left ragged and tatty as his machine crash lands, thrown unceremoniously into his library/swimming pool. He cares less about the ordinary passage of time, aliens appear in the sky but he does nothing to explain their presence, he dispenses scientific marvels to gain trust with no care for the impact they will have. This doctor is less the strange outsider here to the save the day, more the Shakespearean comic interlude drunkenly stumbling onto stage halfway through the action, making a fool out of himself and, ultimately, the protagonist.
Lonely, no more.
Gone are the moments of self doubt, gone are the pregnant pauses when friends or family are mentioned, this Doctor believes he is lucky to not have an Aunt. Maybe the violent reminder of Gallifrey’s last days in The End of Time were enough to kill his inner romanticism for the Timelords of old, maybe he’s just used to having human friends now. This Doctor seeks out companions, pursues them through time, doesn’t disappear to never come back, he might even stay for dinner, although he does have special dietary requirements. He makes no show of inviting his latest traveller in, he makes no complaints at meeting the family, he doesn’t even insult the boyfriend, well, only a little.
A mad man with a box.
The previous Doctor wanted to be a man of peace, the fire of the time war still burning within him he declared himself the man who would not, but it was a hollow claim, he admitted he manipulated others into taking their lives, he used combat to send the Sycorax on their way, he drowned the last of the Racnoss under the Thames. This Doctor brings fire and fury to every aspect of his life, yelling and cajoling his human helpers, flinging his bread and butter away as if it was explosive, a man who rips a breach wide open to close it. He uses the rhetoric of power and anger, this time it is his enemies who are told to run, even turning his ire on a duck pond because of its lack of ducks. This is a doctor who does not shy away from the word ‘evil’, even if he is describing beans. He levels his fury at not just his enemies, but those who see Earth as an inconsequence, dispatching prisoner zero back to his death penalty with no consideration for his crime or the conditions of his captivity. But his guards are not to get away free either, this Doctor will call them back just to threaten them, he is proud of his battles, he is worse than everybody’s Aunt, he is the man who would.
The Runaway Bride
Still in her childhood room, surrounded by fairy lights and cardboard models, Amy Pond has always dreamed of running away, from her Aunt, from the crack in the wall, from her sort of boyfriend who she is now marrying. She is frustrated by the Doctor, he leaves her unsatisfied twice, whilst she dresses in her kissogram outfit and makes her boyfriend play the raggedy Doctor in dress up before leaving her wedding dress on the hanger for a chance to ask ‘what if?’ Brave and smart, she aids the Doctor even when unconscious, and is afraid of nothing, except cracks in reality and interdimensional multi phases. Amy tries to join the Doctor 3 times over the course of the first episode, but she is not a lap dog, she demands answers, hits him with a cricket bat, and locks his tie in a car, less the doctor’s companion than his match.
A universe, not a villain.
A crack in space, an escaped convict, and intergalactic prison guards all present themselves as the monster of the week at some point during the episode but none of them really are. The crack is at most a forewarning of strife to come, the convict never kills and the guards are uninterested in Earth’s fate. This is Earth once again as plaything in the arena of gods and monsters, not a trophy but a stage for their own plays of life and death. Where once the Earth was a launch pad for a new Timelord empire now it is collateral damage in the pursuit of one being. The Doctor may act as a warrior but in reality he is a facilitator, easing other’s use of Earth to protect it. If it is not a problem then it won’t be erased. There have been pursuits of fugitive’s before but Russell T Davies’ plasmavore was prepared to kill the Earth to cement her villainy, this time it is the pursuers who will burn everything.
No Tardis, No Screwdriver, Twenty Minutes.
As much a statement of intent from a writer forging a brave new universe as a Doctor finding his stride, this episode was notable for the lack of space age technology. Gone are Delta waves, in are emails, texts, facebook, bebo, twitter, radar dish, this Doctor harnesses the power of now. Messages transmitted at the speed of light, across every country, across every device, if Stephen Fry can communicate from a stuck lift, the Doctor can spread a virus to the farthest corners of humanity. Everything links back to a phone, not a specially made alien array, not a timey wimey detector, but a phone. A phone that can contact aliens via MMS, a phone that can call spaceships, if you dial long enough, a phone that is recognisable, that is human, unlike its user.
More than just a new mouth.
This is a distinctly new Doctor Who, a more childish but also smarter take on the central conceit. This version plays with time and consequence more, develops its own logic and knows its place. The direction is different, more active, more concerned with framing the action in an interesting way than just observing. The writing is smoother, funnier and more childish without losing its dramatic heart, this Doctor eats custard and fish fingers but he understands fear better than before. I could, and probably will, be wrong but its one episode in and I’m on board, and judging by the way my Dad giggled along as the Doctor rejected different foods I’m not the only one.
No comments:
Post a Comment