Doctor Who Review: Listen

“Listen” is one of the best Nu-Who episodes of all – up there with Blink, Girl in the Fireplace, Vincent and the Doctor and A Christmas Carol. It’s really the first proper Capaldi Doctor story – there’s a nagging feeling that the previous 3 were written without being sure about what the 12^th Doctor would be like – so his character was worked into the story. With “Listen”, the story is all about his character. The whole premise, about whether there could be a silent, untraceable being shadowing your every move and being the basis of a recurring mass nightmare, comes from the idle and slightly tortured mind of the 12^th Doctor. Leave the 11^th Doctor on his own and he’ll invent a new recipe for fish fingers and custard, or go off and get engaged to Marilyn Monroe – leave the 12^th Doctor alone and he’ll delve all the way into the long, dark teatime of the soul.

This episode is so many things – it is a dark character study of the 12^th Doctor, it is a straight horror story, it is a romantic comedy and a romantic drama, it’s a far future time travel piece of sci-fi. Most of all, it’s simply a great piece of TV drama, written with all of the skills that we know the Moff possesses, directed to full on spooky effect and with three principal performances that hit all the right buttons.

Jenna Coleman continues to impress in Series 9, now that she has real material to work with and a better defined relationship with the Doctor. Clara hung out with the 11^th Doc because she fancied him and was swept up in the excitement of it all. Clara allows herself to accompany the 12^th Doctor because she feels a duty to him. She knows he’s a good man, she knows he is a remarkable man, but the Doctor is still struggling to realise it himself. Bringing a romantic element to her life is a masterstroke. How much longer will she tolerate the fantasy life over real life? Samuel Anderson as, first of all, Danny and then later Orson Pink is very good, stepping easily into the main supporting character . As Danny, his sensitive portrayal of a man haunted by his past and trying to make a normal life for himself is a contrast to the Doctor’s own struggle, and maybe Clara’s dilemas too. This slowing of the pace, that we saw so effectively in the restaurant conversation in Deep Breath, is carried on here. Clara and Danny’s date cuts between cute comedy and abrasive conflict, but both actors keep their mutual attraction bubbling along. It’s an adult relationship – two people working through the surface stuff because they know there’s a deeper connection; it’s no rush of flowery romance and it’s better because of it.

Pushing the storyline along, and dragging Clara along with it, is Capaldi’s 12^th Doctor. Matt Smith’s 11^th Doctor was the young man, with an almost childlike demeanour, who bore the weight of ages. Capaldi is the opposite – physically and in much of his temperament, he’s an old man – wrinkled, grey, thin and cantankerous. But his personality is so much less mature. He’s a boy, trying to find his place in the Universe, although aware that his place is so much more than most people’s places. “Listen” takes us back to the physical boy, with a neat link to the Day of the Doctor, and reveals a wee slice of what made the Doctor what he became. According to the “Time of the Doctor”, Capaldi is sort of a brand new Doctor – the beginning of a whole new cycle of regenerations. This story backs that up – he’s still new, still coming to terms with himself. Peter Capaldi, with those eyes, that furrowed brow, those spindly limbs and hissing teeth, is unlikely to become a cuddly Doctor. Caring squeezes out when it absolutely has to, when he meets and empathises with the young Danny – the 12^th Doctor is on your side, but it’s not always easy to see it. It will take growth and emotional maturity to really empathise with real people and situations. He knows he has to be outraged by injustice and evil, but he doesn’t necessarily feel it.

The 12^th Doctor and Clara have one of the most intriguing relationships that the show has ever produced – unlike last series, Clara is not a mystery to solve – she’s the Doctor’s friend, here to help him. He needs her. His abrasive, blunt and merciless character is covering up his fears. And Clara knows it; she can see the child within and it’s her responsibility to help him find the man, the Timelord, that she knows that the Doctor can be. In “Listen” she actually meets that child, but she’s also starting a relationship where she, once again, will be the one helping someone find their way out of the dark.

And amid all this deep character stuff is a monster to be avoided, people to be rescued, mysteries to solve, paradoxes to be confused by – this is Who at its best; pulp horrors and romance and action, all mixed in with something far weightier about who we are and where we come from and how we come together; we have nightmares, but we ALL have nightmares – and we can all help each other face the fears and come out of the dark.

And now, Flash-fic-Fan-fic:

HungerTime – Part Four

The Tardis landed. The Doctor leapt out brandishing his spoon. “Where is she?” he bellowed at the empty, snow-filled street.

There was a thumping of feet from behind him. He turned in time to be floored by three Claras.
 “Doctor!” said Clara.
“You’re not the Doctor,” said Oswin.
“I need a Doctor,” said Victorian Clara.
“This can’t happen,” said the Doctor, “Three of you. All at once.”
“Rich coming from you,” said Clara.
Snow swirled, sparks flew. The Doctor raised the sonic. It screamed and exploded. A terribly familiar pepperpot shaped formed in the snow.
“Running time,” said the Doctor.

If you want more Doctor Who reviews, go to http://reviewthewho.wordpress.com/ - my reviews of the Matt Smith/ 11th Doctor stories are under Series 5,6 and 7 - and a whole load of reviews covering all 50 years of the show are elsewhere. Go on, you know you want to.

Now go and buy my ebook The Royal Wedding from Hell

Doctor Who - Season 7 Review/ rambling....

First things first Season 7 was way better than Season 6. A quick and dirty recap of Season 6:
Impossible Astronaut/ Day of the Moon – a cracking start, nasty aliens, clever resolution with intriguing hints of the larger story to come.
The Curse of the Black Spot – the worst episode since Love and Monsters. Down there with The Twin Dilemma awfulness.
The Doctor’s Wife – sort of interesting, but over-indulgent
The Rebel Flesh/ The Almost People – actually, quite good
A Good Man goes to War – a long way up itself, but with enough thrills and spills to be fun, a good twist but let down by the revelation that River was Amy’s daughter
And then came the second half....

Let’s Kill Hitler – Poor
Night Terrors – seen it all before
The Girl who waited – YES, Amy loves Rory, how many times do we have to be told? And look, a robot thing with a catchphrase.
The God Complex – seen it all before, in fact, two episodes ago.
Closing Time – oh please...
The Wedding of River Song – and reset.
So overall, a decent start which nose-dived in the second half. Which brings us to Season Seven. We’ll ignore the 2011 Xmas special because it was terrible.

Asylum of the Daleks – superb, best NuWho since...possibly since Who returned.
Dinosaurs on a Spaceship – almost daft, but they pull it off. A decent villain for a change.
A Town called Mercy – predictable but good stuff.
The Power of Three – surprisingly good despite being yet another sodding character piece.
The Angels Take Manhattan – Weeping Angels have jumped the shark, although the Statue of Liberty as Angel was impressive. But this was good because we finally saw the back of Amy and Rory who had gone on way too long.
The Snowmen – superb, best Nu Who since...oh, Asylum of the Daleks.
The Bells of St John – watchable but not what you’d call good.
The Rings of Akhatan – oh dear, is it Season 6B revisited?
Cold War – thank God NO – Ice Warriors return in style.
Hide – haunted house stories are getting a bit tired, but solid work.
Journey to the Centre of the Tardis – bleuurgh.
The Crimson Horror – Another good villain – that’s two in one season.
Nightmare in Silver – the best Nu Who since....The Snowmen
The Name of the Doctor – a bit of a reset but a good tease for the 50th Special.

My overall gripes are Amy and Rory dragging on and how the mid-season break distorts the flow of stories – we’re just waiting for the mid-season “event”, the rest is almost filler (if sometimes very good filler). Clara was superb in Asylum and the Snowmen but took a few stories to pick up again. Cold War saved the second half and Nightmare brought it home with gusto.
All in all, a great improvement and a great new companion gee’d things up nicely. Season 6 just bogged itself down in too much Amy/ Rory-ness – Season 7 was a return to plain old villains and monsters (and returning villains and monsters), with Daleks and Cybermen getting their best outings for a long while, the revived (should we say defrosted) Ice Warriors and reintroduced Great Intelligence. Matt Smith continued to rise above some mediocre material, but thankfully, not too much mediocre material – in Nightmare in Silver, I’d argue he hit his highest notes yet. Sadly we’ve only got two more adventures with him – the Big Special and then the Xmas episode.
Coming up, though, is even greater excitement – we hope. Who is this “other” Doctor played by John Hurt? What fun and jollies will go down in the 50th Anniversary Special, with Doc no 10 and Rose Tyler returning? And how will No 11 regenerate into No 12 – in the form of Peter Capaldi?

My personal hopes for Season 8:
No mid-season break – 13 straight episodes, please.
Slow down a bit for longer two-parters. Maybe even try for a meaningful three-parter.
Enough of the mysterious companion nonsense. Clara’s role is to have stuff explained to her (and thus, us), lose the Doc and meet the locals and tell the Doc where he is going wrong. She is along for the ride because it is fun; not because she is in love with the Doc or getting over something, or because the Doc is finding out who she is. Note how I have refrained from saying that her role is to look pretty. This is 2013, you know....
How about a nasty, villainous villain doing something nasty that the Doctor will sort out? No need for paradoxical timey-wimey-ness.
New villains and new monsters – once we’re past the Big 50, let’s put the old stuff on ice for a while, shall we?
An episode (or two) commissioned from a bright new writer based in New Zealand, shot in Wellington and directed by my chum* and almost neighbor, Peter Jackson.

Anyhoo - that's my wrapping up. Now, go and buy my ebook, ideal for Dr Who fans - http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/178959

*When I say chum, I have seen him drive past my bus stop several times in his lovely silver Aston Martin DB5. If he stopped and said Hi, I’m sure we’d get on like a house on fire.

First draft done...and we wait for first reactions

It's always great to finish something, or at least, get it to a state when you can't go any further without several second pairs of eyes. And so it was that I came to the (first) finishing of "The Royal Wedding from Hell".

The first edit was fun - taking that very first, warts and all version, re-reading it, giving every major chunk a number, making a wee post-it note for each chunk and then arranging and re-arranging bits to make sure it all makes sense, re-writing some bits completely, cutting out bits and writing all new bits (like how I somehow missed a major character getting killed - he was there one moment, then gone the next).

So after a week or two of that, I reached a version that can be passed out to my 2nd readers, including a Phd in English Literature who is excellent at the hardcore grammatical proofreading, as well as annoyingly good and honest story critique. Though it did make my teeth grate when I handed the manuscript over and she said "ah, a misplaced apostrophe" a second later.....

So with the actual writing bit finished (for a week or so surely) I can take it easy, right?

NO, because I have to knock up a cover for my novella. I have gone back to my faithful old desktop PC, still running Windows XP (Service Pack 3), still running very well and clear of bugs (mainly because it is not connected to the Internet) and still with PaintShop Pro installed on it.

I've not touched PaintShop Pro for years since the photo editing tools that come with Windows 7 are good enough these days, but, I need logos and layers and fancy fonts and some way to make a blood splattered effect.

And cover design is interesting - just casting my eye along the shelves of the bookshops or around Amazon and I realise that there's an awful lot of ways to put your name and the name of the story on the front cover. Name above, or name below title?

Along with cover, I need to make some kind of similar themed banner for the blog, and thumbnail versions, and other little logos to go here and there for Facebook and so on.

And then - I have to make sure the finished, finished version is formatted to go through the Smashwords convertor, then figure how to do all that again for Amazon.

And then try to plug the whole thing - it would be nice to have someone buy it in the end. And maybe even read it.

It is all a great exercise though - and hopefully I can put it all to good use again when I get to writing and publishing "MechaObama vs The Angel Romney".

And now, 100 words of awesome Prince Harry and Pippa action from The Royal Wedding from Hell (2nd readers version, very subject to later editing...)

“Cover your ears,” said Harry. Pippa did as she was told as Harry hit another switch.

A sonic shockwave pulsed out from the car and the dozen or so armed cops were thrown backwards.

“Woah,” said Pippa.

Harry clutched his head. Blood trickled from his nose. “So that’s what happens with that,” he gasped.

“Harry, get us to the church on time,” said Pippa.

He shook his head to clear it and pumped his foot to the floor again. The car shot forward, hurtling towards police barriers and the tower of Big Ben.

They roared past the Houses of Parliament.

At last - the Tale of Sloppy Bunny

I’ve been watching...

Falling Skies - a new US sci-fi drama taking place six months after alien invasion has torn society apart, following the squabbling survivors. Frankly I saw the first couple of episodes and have given up on anything more. As a long-standing Dr Who fan, I encourage people to watch “The Dalek Invasion of Earth” for pretty much the same storyline, (humanity on the brink of extinction, bickering survivors, aliens abducting humans and implanting them with stuff to make them mindless slaves) but with far better aliens, and, of course, a Timelord who’ll sort the whole mess out.

Survivor – not a sci-fi series but the US gameshow (let’s not call such things “reality” shows, if this is your reality then maybe the aliens have actually invaded). A fairly dull series that has finally lifted off in the last couple of episodes.

Brandon, a nephew of a previous, and far more charismatic and devious, contestant, is continually harping on about his sodding faith and praises Jesus for helping him win challenges. It’s a pity Jesus wasn’t helping him to avoid getting chucked out. Oddly enough Coach Wade, the architect of Brandon’s fall, also claimed that God was telling him what to do.

So what does this tell us about God? God, like this viewer, can’t stand Brandon. God, like this viewer, would like to see the mental Coach Wade win. Or perhaps, God doesn’t give a monkey’s about Survivor.

(God doesn’t seem to take an interest in the US Republican primaries either, since His most devout candidate, Rick Santorum, trailed a weak fourth in New Hampshire.)

I’ve been reading...

Hearts in Atlantis – more Stephen King, and again, cracking stuff. The master on form and on about the sixties and the ‘nam.

Imajica – actually failed to finish the first volume of this Clive Barker epic. Promising start but it trailed away.

Adrian Mole: the prostate years – a little disappointing, mainly because the previous Mole book was so utterly superb. Mole struggling with real issues than his usual delusions is not as funny, but Sue Townsend is still an excellent writer and the Mole circle of family and friends are simply a fun bunch to be around.

I’ve been writing....

I’m actually managing to churn out a few hundred words a day, often around a solid thousand – “The Royal Wedding from Hell” is coming along quite nicely. As always, my abortive first version laid some groundwork for a much better second version; it’s all getting a lot weirder and more sinister.

And, hopefully, if I pull my finger out, it will be a novella that will be getting published in ebook form in time for Kate and Wills’ first anniversary (29^th April).

Is this self-publishing an act of vanity? Probably yes, but it’s also an exercise in just getting something “OUT THERE”, and getting a handle on how this new world of publishing works. There are already self-published writers of ebooks who have chalked up a million sales; sooner or later someone will self-publish the next Harry Potter or Stieg Larsson. To be honest, I don’t think it will be “The Royal Wedding from Hell”, but we’ll have a go.

And this blog’s drabble – I don’t know about you, but I can’t stand Beatrix Potter.

Binky and Sloppy Bunny peeked round the corner of the greenhouse. Farmer Gruber, with his spade, was waiting, just by the hole in the fence.

“We’ll never get past,” squeaked Binky, “but, the baby bunnies need these carrots.”

Sloppy stubbed out his cigarette. “No probs. I’ll distract Gruber, you get the carrots away.”

Binky watched as Sloppy hopped round the greenhouse and shouted “Oi!”

Gruber charged at Sloppy. Sloppy pointed to the corner.

Gruber turned and whacked Binky’s brains out.

“Nice one,” said Gruber, handing over a big carrot.

“Keep the carrots coming,” said Sloppy, “you’ll keep getting rabbit pies.”