The Costume of The Doctor

So the BBC have released the first official image of Peter Capaldi's costume as the Twelfth Doctor.

To be honest, I find it a bit boring. It's a nice cut and good colour, but it's very plain and quite contemporary. The only bit of flash is the red lining of the coat, which is really only visible in this picture because they've strategically flipped the coat back to reveal it.

What happened to the kookiness in The Doctor's outfit? I'm not saying we need to go to the levels of Colin Baker's technicolour dream coat, or even Sylvester McCoy's question mark emblazoned sweater vest, but The Doctor has always shown a penchant for slightly left of field fashion.

The First Doctor had his funny little hat. Two has his tartan pants. Three stole a stage magician's costume. Four's outfit was a delightful mish-mash of clothing that somehow still worked as a whole. Things started going off the rails with Five and his celery and question marks, but the cricket whites were a good choice.

These costumes all spoke of a man who wasn't familiar with Earth dress, or didn't bother trying because you never know what's going to be in style where you're going anyway. It indicates a man eccentric enough to be unconcerned with fitting in, and maybe cheeky enough to have a subtle laugh at people too. Above all, it shows The Doctor is a man who is constantly out of time.

Sadly, since the reboot The Doctor has generally had rather sensible contemporary clothing. Nine had a t-shirt and leather jacket and ten had quite a nice suit (or two). Eleven took steps back to The Doctor of old, with that slightly out of time look. Having nicked his first outfit from an old man, it created that juxtaposition of a young bloke wearing old man clothes. Then we get a costume change with The Snowmen, and The Doctor gets all Steampunk. Frankly I'm surprised they didn't have him keep the top hat.

And here we are now with Twelve dragging us back to a boring contemporary suit. Such a missed opportunity. Maybe he'll get a cool hat.

Review - Rise of the Cybermen

Another classic Who Monster storms back, albeit with a rather clumsy retcon in Rise of the Cybermen.

Season 2, Episode 5 - Rise of the Cybermen

From the outset we know what the monster of this episode is because, much like Season 1's Dalek, it's in the title of the episode. That said, they do a great job of hiding the Cybers until right near the end of the episode. This is a major benefit of the two-parter. You get that awesome cliffhanger reveal.

Look out! A vaguely man-shaped blob!

We pick up the TARDIS Crew as they get smashed between realities and land in an alternate version of Earth. Of course Rose soon discovers her Dad is alive in this dimension, leading her to immediately run off to find him. Micky takes the opportunity to do the same thing whilst almost petulantly pointing out that The Doctor will always go after Rose. This gives us a chance to get some rather clumsily inserted back-story for Micky which unfortunately telegraphs his eventual fate pretty clearly. Let's be honest, "he doesn't have any family left" is a rather foreboding phrase to hear uttered, on par with "I'm two weeks from retirement," or, "I think I'll wear my red shirt for the trip to the mysterious planet's surface."

Mickey gets a chance to shine in this episode though, even if it is as an alternate version of himself. Ricky is a total bad-ass, a fact that somehow redeems Mickey's portrayal as a bit of a goofy, spineless doormat. He is ripped though, a fact we are made plainly aware of. The split screen with Mickey and Ricky are well done with only a couple of poorly synced lines when they're both on screen together.

Lumic is a nice Big Bad, although he positively reeks of Davros. A crippled genius determined to expunge weakness from his race. I think it's a real shame this reboot or retcon or whatever you want to call it makes the Cybermen a bit too much like the Daleks. I find the idea of a race voluntarily moving towards a new form to be far more compelling than that of one forced or tricked into change by one man. 

He does have better teeth than Davros though.

That said, the way Lumic's plot unfolds through this episode is nice. The small-scale start which ramps up to the roll out of industrial conversion works well. I would have liked to see Cybus cybernetic technology being used in more ways than the Ear Buds. Some cybernetic arms, legs and even eyes would have been not only shown people's willingness to upgrade their weak flesh, but reinforced the differentness of the alternate dimension. You know, beyond all the airships.

Airships are huge in alternate dimensions. Airships and goatees.

Rose's conversation with alternate-Jackie was well done and gave both actors some time to show their chops. I can't help but feel Jackie's outburst at the end was there less to remind us that Rose is not her daughter and more to make her less sympathetic in the lead up to her assimilation.

All up, this is a solid episode with few of the regular issues that really bug me. Rose and The Doctor still have an odd relationship. Is it romantic or paternal? It's not really a focus of the episode though, with the threat of Cybus clear from the off. Definitely up there amongst my favourites.

8/10

Can we fix it?

There's not too much that needs doing the the overall plot here, but I feel the setup and the linking of the classic Mondas Cybermen and the new Cybus ones needs a tweak.

First off, I'd change Lumic a tad. Make him less of a genius himself and more a rich industrialist using his wealth and influence to overcome his own body's weakness. At the same time we see him reluctant (possibly even scared) to actually use these developments himself. This could be shown to raise questions from some people. Why get about in a wheelchair when your company makes cybernetic legs? Why the respirator when you could have robo-lungs? This would raise a little flag early on that there is something dangerous about the upgrades.

Second, a slight tweak to the Cybus technology. With a pinch of Terminator 2 and a dash of Dollhouse, we can flesh out the background of the rise of Cybus Industries and at the same time reinforce those parallels with our own desires to constantly upgrade.

Early on, the TARDIS crew only realise the ear buds were unusual because everyone stops dead in the street to receive an update. Seriously, that's dangerous, and therefore stupid, so let's get rid of it. Instead Rose bumps into a man in the street who turns around to reveal a very Cyberman looking visor. Rose screams, to which the man replies, "I know, right? Brand new model. Camped out all week, but I was first in line to upgrade."

As he wanders off Rose comments that they look like uncomfortable sunglasses. The Doctor tells her they're not sunglasses. After this they start noticing more cyber technology. Clinics offering cyber upgrades. Workmen with cyber limbs with built-in tools. Maybe even an advert for the upcoming Cyber Games (sponsored by Cybus).

Later when Rose and Pete are talking, we would learn that one of Cybus' early breakthroughs was a neural link that allowed the human brain to interface directly with computers. This technology is at the heart of every Cybus product, and lets the brain control the computer as well as provide additional processing power. This partnership of brain and computer worries Rose and she asks what stops the computer being used to control the brain. Pete simply asks who would want to do that.

This conversation would reinforce earlier scattered hints that this original technology was derived from something alien. Very Terminator 2, I know, but having Lumic discover parts of a ruined Mondas Cyberman avoids the odd dual origin. Weather the original specimen is from an alternate Mondas that didn't thrive, or had washed up as dimensional flotsam in a similar manner to how the TARDIS ended up there, it doesn't matter.

We end this episode on the same note, but with a clearer connection between the original Cybermen and this new breed.

Review - The Time Of The Doctor

Matt Smith bows out as The Doctor in this years much awaited Christmas Special, The Time Of The Doctor.

Christmas Special 2013 - The Time Of The Doctor

First up, a quick apology for the almost one month delay in getting this up, but my original no-fixes review went up a while ago on Geek-O-Rama.net and it really did take a lot of thought to figure out how to fix this one. But on to the review.

Oh my good God. I'm so glad I didn't watch this immediately, it would have spoiled my Christmas buzz. This was not only a total shambles of a story that packed in a whole bunch of unnecessary sexual innuendo, but it revisited almost every reference from Smith's tenure that annoys me. Ordinarily this is where I would say, "but it was all worth it for the twenty seconds of Peter Capaldi at the end", but seriously, it wasn't.

To start with, the relationship between The Doctor and Clara continues to be confused, with her confirmation she "fancied him" whilst bringing The Doctor in as a fake boyfriend despite him originally getting the wrong end of the stick and pretty much saying he'd be up for the real deal. I must say I am hoping for a dramatic reduction in this sort of thing with Capaldi as Twelve. It's just so boring.

The In-Who-Endos fly thick and fast in the opening minutes. I mean, what was the deal with the hologram clothes? The concept of being nude in church is an interesting one, being bare before God and so forth, but with no explanation, and in combination with Tasha Lem's alter-shaped bed, I'm left assuming that it's just there to poke fun at religion by sexualising it.

*Deftly avoids joke abut Holy of Holies*

It's not the first time I've sensed this kind of jab at organised religion in a Moffat story, either. Previous appearances such as The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone and A Good Man Goes To War saw The Church as largely Anglican, and the prominence of openly gay couple The Fat One and The Thin One was either a reference to the already evolving Anglican Church (female ministers etc) or just a cheap gay joke. With Moffat it's hard to tell. Now we see The Church as being somehow related to a very Catholic sounding Papal Mainframe.

We also saw a big slab of Hunka Hunka Burning Doc with The Doctor and Tasha Lem. Their sexual banter was so overt that I found myself waiting for the reveal that she was somehow a regenerated River Song. When did The Doctor have the time to develop this kind of long-term sexual relationship with a woman who wasn't River? It clearly wasn't as Eleven, so was Ten putting it about even more than we realised? It was all so unnecessary though. None of it added to the story one iota, and the flash of naked Matt Smith at the start seemed pure fan-service.

 

It was as if a million fan-girls cried out in pleasure.

Again, we have a case of Too Many Monsters, although it did seem to make some sense as to why they were there. I worried when the teaser came out because it was cut in a way that made it seem the whole thing was a set-up, much like the Pandorica plot-line. The teasers also had me face-palming at the return of the Silence, but again, in context they were relevant. I actually liked the idea that they were professional confessors, but after a second thought, It doesn't make much sense because half the point of confession is the act of confession, so even if you are getting some kind of post-hypnotic suggestion of penance, you're losing all the psychological benefits of confession by forgetting that you've actually done it. I was also quite upset for the Sontarins, who seem to have been relegated to comic relief. Don't get me wrong, Strax is a great character and pulls off comic relief well, but to make all Sontarins appear inept and stupid is a real shame.

 

One of the most fearsome military forces in the universe. No, seriously.

The episode just seemed a ham-fisted attempt to tie all of Eleven's season arcs into one grand overarching plot. Unfortunately instead of a mind-blowing climax to everything we've seen the past four years, all we got was a self-referential mish-mash with no real direction beyond tying up all of the loose ends. But you know what? Sometimes loose ends are a good thing. Case in point, the only thing that wasn't resolved was the return of Gallifrey. In a way I am looking forward to that being The Doctor's main objective moving forward. I hope it can be left unresolved for a long time, much like the holy scriptures in Monkey.

The whole thing just seemed to drag, and when I wasn't groaning because of some fresh innuendo or the reappearance of those thrice-damned Weeping Angels, I was checking to see how much longer it had to go. By the time we got to see the regeneration, I was over it. Capaldi's final line was a classic though.

 

Can you fly this thing?

I won't be rushing out to watch this one again.

4/10

Can we fix it?

I'm really struggling to see how we can fix this without a ground-up re-write. The entire episode seemed geared towards cramming in as many references to Eleven's tenure as possible, which sadly left little room for an actual story.

The bare bones of the episode, the Timelords calling through the crack, is a solid premise, but it just wasn't effectively played out. Many elements seem to have been included purely to fit with the existing prophesy, making for a rather jumbled scenario.

My main beef with the basic premise is the concept of the "Truth Field", which seems to me to be something an advanced race like the Timelords would have little trouble bypassing. I mean every man and his dog can recognize psychic paper now, so surely The Doctor wouldn't be susceptible to something like that. It seems to really only be there to fulfil the conditions of the prophesy. If it had to stay for that reason, at least have it that the Timelords knew The Doctor could still lie in a Truth Field but were using it to screen out "lesser" life forms.

And in the end, even though the Truth Field covers the bit of the prophesy that states, "when no living thing can speak falsely" it fails to address the next bit, specifically, "or fail to answer." The Doctor fails to answer for 300 years. Hell, he fails to answer at all, in the end. I really thought the prophesy was referring to the events of The Name of The Doctor where he was being forced to speak his name, and would have considered the matter resolved at that point.

The connection to The Silence could have been better too. Madame Kovarian should have featured, possibly as a subordinate to Tasha Lem who argues with her about how to handle the situation. Kovarian ultimately takes a group of followers and time travels to attempt to kill The Doctor. This removes the need for Lem's Faith Change, which felt really forced in.

The Papal Mainframe could also remain a neutral party maintaining the lockout of the planet, meaning the small incursions faced by The Doctor actually make sense as small groups penetrate the defenses. This also removes the need for the stupid human Daleks, which were an idiotic idea in Asylum of the Daleks, and completely unnecessary here.

With a tighter opening and none of the sexual innuendo, we can move to the actual siege quicker and then spend more time on the individual conflicts rather than an 80s style montage. This would lead up to the final battle after Lem is killed by the Daleks rather than assimilated.

It still wouldn't be great, but most of the major issues would be gone and it'd feel less forced.