Retro Review: Eccleston's Dr Who

On a whim, I decided to watch the return of Dr Who, which was 15 years ago now and likely to be distant in my memory, especially as I only ever watched these when they were first shown. I felt, with the new lockdown, that perhaps I should revisit the series from the start, with fresher eyes...

Here's my episode-by-episode breakdown:

Rose: With hindsight, not the most auspicious of debuts and in many ways the shadow of wobbly sets and dodgy FX is cast on this immediately. The Autons - living plastic creatures - were never the most terrifying or even plausible villains, so I'm not sure if this first episode was more in homage to the past than scene-setter for the future, especially if memory serves me correctly Jon Pertwee's first adventure was also against the Autons.

However, as an intro for the new Doctor and for companion, Rose Tyler, it's a perfect way to become acquainted. In many ways it's a dreadful episode full of poor slapstick, unrealistic actions and a genuine lack of suspense. Plus the first of many implausible 'escapes' for major characters with no explanation as to why or how. What it also does is hint at a much darker Doctor - a man who seems to be sailing a little too close to deranged. There is also a lot of death wrapped up in an almost CBBC towel and it continued a theme that [ahem] runs through the series - that of lots of running around.

The End of the World: The main problem with the second episode is the lack of logic employed throughout it - from the reasons behind the villain's actions to the ridiculous Super Mario level to simply be able to turn the space station off. It's full of what would be token digs at consumerism, capitalism and selfishness throughout the series and also introduces the Face of Boe. It's a mystery set 6 billion years in the future at the end of the Earth's life; it's a uninspired idea marred by '21st century' thinking. At this point, even with excellent enigmatic acting from Christopher Eccleston, you could have started to wonder if this comeback was going to be a one-off series.

The Unquiet Dead: There is much to like about this episode, despite the fact that it seems so contrived. It is genuinely creepy at times and has an unsettling ending. It's also the first real indication of the 'Bad Wolf', the recurring mystery motif throughout the rest of the series. What seems to be a strange ghost/zombie story, with no obvious links to Charles Dickens - who plays a large part in this without really doing a lot - ends up being an alien invasion story about a rift under Cardiff (with Gwen from Torchwood playing a different role). The things we learn from this episode include the fact this doctor doesn't seem to object to collateral damage; while there's a darkness that is hinted at which seems like it could be blacker than we could imagine.

Aliens of London & World War Three: By the time I got to this first two-parter, my patience was wearing a bit thin. The Slitheen are grotesque and grossly unappealing; there is something that is neither menacing or scary about them (outside of the slightly better than poor special effects) and the added farting is just another concession to the FACT that Dr Who is essentially a family show. Again normal logic seems to have been thrown out of the window in favour of a mix of slapstick and altering facts to suit the story. 

Aliens who want to do nothing more than reduce the planet to a heap of ashes for future sale deserve no mercy and get none. Yet again we see a Doctor more prepared to blow up the enemy than negotiate a peace deal; the problem by now is the frivolous Dr Who stories were getting in the way of his character development and the way Rose was being developed into a liability rather than an asset. 

Dalek: And then something happened...

Forget the cod am-dram acting by supporting characters in this (and all the previous episodes), you realise that this isn't about the incidental music, it's about the rhythm section. For what seemed like the 5th time in six episodes, Rose was responsible, indirectly, for the deaths of hundreds of people, while flirting and giving middle aged dads hard-ons, and the Doctor is angry, alone and slightly mad. It has some excellent acting in it and with this episode you start to wish that Eccleston could have been persuaded to do a second series, because he becomes The Doctor with this - full of bitterness, grief and wrath. 

The denouement is both weak and important. It ends up being just another 'episode' of nothing really changes, except we now know more of the back story that won't be really shared for a number of years. It is the stand out of the series.

The Long Game: After the darkness, comes the light... Or in real terms, more of the same frivolous something wants to control the Earth and the Doctor comes along and saves the day (or does he?). Set on board (another) space station channelling news 24/7 to the world below, all carefully chosen information designed to keep the population below in a constant state of fear. Again, the themes are about becoming something better while the past catches up with you. There is, obviously something wrong here, otherwise DW and Rose wouldn't be there.

At the time, this seemed like just another 'filler' episode and did nothing to forewarn us of the part this episode would play in the coming episodes. The title, in many ways, doesn't appear to have much to do with the events, except that maybe the title 'The Long Game' was signifying something else...

Father's Day: And back we go to something dark and nasty. Has Rose been planning something like this from the moment she met the Doctor? Was her intention to get him to take her back to the day her father died to save his life? It certainly seems that way as yet again Rose Tyler unleashes a deadly force on the planet that will result in everyone dying. It also walks that fine line between what the Doctor is allowed to interfere with and why some things he doesn't get involved with.

What this episode does highlight is why the Doctor taking human companions is often fraught with danger because humans inherently do the wrong thing. It also cements the relationship between Rose and the Doctor. If you took the two of them out of the context of the rest of the show, this is about a young woman infatuated with an older man, who in turn is infatuated with her. Not since the flirtatious days of Pertwee and Jo Grant (Katy Manning) has there been a dynamic between the Time Lord and his companion so charged with sexual tension and attraction. This is a love affair without the trappings of sex.

The Empty Child & The Doctor Dances: The second two-parter and the introduction of two vitally important things - Captain Jack Harkness and a level of seriousness that was lacking in all but a couple of the previous shows. Set during the blitz, it's a simple story of alien nanotechnology attempting to save a dead child but failing to recognise the species and causing humans to gradually be taken over by gene-rewriting technology condemning the race to a kind of zombie existence behind a humanised gas mask.

This in many ways is classic Who. A race to save the planet from a villain who is neither a foe or malicious entity. The underlying theme is honesty and not being true to oneself and like in Father's Day a sacrifice needs to be made, except this time round everyone lives. A happy ending, of sorts. 

Boomtown: This is what would be called a 'filler' in old Star Trek parlance; a wordy, almost talking heads episode that explains much and gives away little. The last surviving Slitheen is attempting to destroy the planet to help her get home, except she might not be, because it's difficult to tell what this Slitheen really wants. Mind games abound between the Doctor and his prisoner; between Rose and estranged boyfriend Mickey, while Jack ensconces himself into the team without a hitch. The dialogue is suddenly more zippy; there's a sense of purpose that was lacking and even though this specific segment does little to move the story on, it does have major issues in it that suddenly seems to tie all the previous 10 episodes together.

Bad Wolf & The Parting of the Ways: There's a real sense that the first 30 minutes of the first part of this final double header is just a bit self-indulgent. We return to Satellite 5, the headquarters of what was the news streaming satellite that is now a 24/7 games station, with 'games' that seem to provide little but death to the contestants. Featured 'reality' TV shows from 200,000 years earlier are still popular but now with a charnel twist. 100 years earlier the Doctor saved the planet from one threat to leave it wide open to another, far more serious, unknown threat. Something he has no idea about, but believes it to be connected to the recurring Bad Wolf motif that has been following him throughout time.

The Earth circa 200,100AD lives on a diet of rubbish in industrialised cities and all the time being secretly manipulated by the Doctor's sworn enemies The Daleks, who, apart from the one long survivor in an earlier episode, were believed to have been wiped out in the much hinted at Time War between Time Lords and their mates in metal boxes. When this is finally realised, the Doctor, Jack and Rose help the remaining people on Satellite 5 make a last stand against a half a million Daleks and their new fleet. 

Having promised Rose's mum that he would look after her daughter, the Doctor tricks Rose into returning home in the Tardis, with instruction to bury the box to allow it to die without him. However, we've recently learned the Tardis is a living being, considerably more powerful than anyone ever imagined and Rose uses this knowledge to override the Doctor's instruction and return to the space station to save him. The thing is to do this Rose has to look into the soul of the Tardis and in so doing she literally becomes it's human interface. The Daleks' are wiped from existence before the Doctor kisses Rose to steal the last of the Tardis energy from her to save her life. Rose was the instigator of Bad Wolf all the time; she is a paradox.

By saving her life, the Doctor triggers his own transformation and we say goodbye to Eccleston and hello to David Tennant - a real jolt to the system in many ways.

The Christmas Invasion: Is not strictly season 1 or 2, it's the bridging point and, in many ways, is more satisfying even if it's all a wee bit contrived. Earth is invaded while the Doctor recovers from his change; it's down to Rose, Mickey and Rose's mum to try and save the day, with the help of the PM - an old friend from the first Slitheen encounter. The Doctor recovers to save the day, yet again, but this time there are consequences and old friends are now no longer considered friendly.

One thing that does appear to be carried over is the sexual frisson between Rose and the Doctor and the growing raging jealousy that old beau Mickey seems to be harbouring.

Overall: I actually think the first series is one of the best; it treads a fine line between comedy and drama; it allowed a bit of camp humour the Doctor was always renowned for and it had a dark undertone that was used to its full effect. Ecclestone was the real shining light; an unorthodox DW, one we've never really seen before, one with more grey areas than you could imagine and definitely not the benign benefactor he becomes the longer the series goes on. This Doctor killed without any problems; with no conscience, little grief. He is portrayed as a lonely man, craving the attention of a young gorgeous girl and unaware of the genuine problems he causes wherever he goes. An ambiguous hero with as much darkness as light.

Billie Piper will have surprised many with her acting and range; she struggled to start with but as the series grew so did she. Her 'companion' has never been equalled - although one later came close (ruined by bad writing rather than anything else) and there was always the sense she wasn't so much picked to be a companion as maybe paradoxically manipulated it to ensure the events of the first series played out the way they did. If you read into the underlying story, you realise that it's actually cleverly written even if the episodes themselves all struggled to find that authentic Sci-Fi series vibe that US shows excel in.

It was incredibly ambitious without overstretching itself and compared to the current incarnation's adventures, it was brimming with ideas and genuine shocks. There are absolutely bang on parts in this; real lump in the throat, watching from behind your open fingers moments and as I said before managed to stay faithful while updating it to the 21st century. I don't think Russell T Davies probably got the recognition he deserved, especially as his replacements have all struggled to match the heights he managed.

As the years rolled by, the series became more frivolous, in many ways more complicated and there were very few standalone episodes that compared to some of the first series. I may venture through the Tennant and Smith years, because, as I stated, I've only ever watched the series once, I'm not a huge fan, I haven't watched shows I adore more than once. 

In comparison to today's incarnation, of which I have no real issues with other than poor scripts and crap companions, this is high quality stuff and we might need DW cancelled and rejigged in ten years time to appreciate what a unique character he is.

Apocalyptic: A Review of 2020

This is a true story

It was a chilly Tuesday, January 21st and the fire was roaring in the Craft Hotel. The pub was busier than expected on a midwinter night, but a lot of that might have been down to me. Two years earlier, in discussion with Sharon, the landlady, she had suggested she might shut on a Tuesday until the spring because of the lack of business. Tuesdays has for a few years been my night out - not exclusively, but it breaks the week up nicely and I only ever have up to 3 pints. I came up with this poster (below) and got my mate Patrick to print a couple off; it also featured on the Facebook and Twitter pages of various places and while Tuesdays were never like a busy night, for the next few months it was worthwhile staying open.

The weird thing is that Tuesdays are now always steady as a result, but this Tuesday, the hotel had three guests - an American lady and a young Chinese couple, who were actually on their honeymoon (Scotland at the end of January for a honeymoon?!?). Also in the pub was the landlady's estranged husband, Andy the local labourer and his mum Rose. Fearn was there, she'd just come off her shift, having been replaced by Louise, who pulled George and my pints. There were also two tables with familiar but not known people having meals and incomer Dave, from the North-east, who seems to only know you when he's trying to hawk a pint. And Sharon was in the kitchen with Zoe.

It was busy enough to make a comment about. However, the real conversation was this growing threat of a pandemic. It was now becoming more than a third story on the news and, of course, it started in China. The thing was, this was still January and while some people might have been panicking about the coming months, most of us were getting over last Christmas and looking forward to that happy new year we all strive for. So when the young Chinese lad - who was actually 35 but looked about 17 - asked Louise behind the bar what beer would she recommend, she turned to me and George for our expert advice.

"Try this." Says I, offering my pint to the young man. He did and ordered a pint. We got chatting, but he had no more info about what was going on than us and his English was weak. When they left for their room, Louise turned to me and said, "That was a hell o'a risk yus took. They're Chinese!" I made light of it and frankly while I did remain a bit worried over the coming week, it didn't really register that much until I sat down to write this review of the year. With hindsight, it was a pretty stupid thing to do even if it was with nothing but good intentions. That seems to be the best way to sum of 2020 as well in many ways...

Brown Liquid

In what has been a reasonable year for me, the first lockdown was good for me and the fine weather meant I entered the autumn in fine fettle. My one real scare was towards the end of the summer when literally overnight I started to feel generally unwell, bilious and like I'd been given a dose of IBS just to catch up with the years I've not suffered from it. There was something of a panic. Milk was cut out of my diet and replaced with oat milk - no change. I avoided wheat for three days, no change. We were narrowing down the list of culprits or I was suffering from something else...

The solution has been both one of the easiest things I've done and with terrible consequences. The next thing on my list to avoid was caffeine - I did, after all I drink about 20 mugs of strong coffee a day. Within 48 hours all the ill feelings had dispersed and only returned once, when, after a week of abstinence, I had a cup of coffee and suffered for the next four hours plus. Apart from the god-awful headaches during the first 9 or 10 days, the most difficult part of cutting caffeine out of your diet is what to replace it with. I like coffee, but proper diesel standard coffee. The stronger the better. I now drink about 6 alternative brown beverages a day now. I haven't had a cup of tea since 2001 and have never really fancied going back to it, especially now my sugar intake has halved, so I was faced with doing something I had NEVER done in my entire existence - and I can think of friends who would be horrified at what I'm about to tell you. I started on decaf (which is how I spell it but it has an erroneous F at the end on jars). Jesus on wheels, how do people seriously drink this? It doesn't smell like coffee. It doesn't taste like coffee. It isn't really coffee; you'd probably get as much out of drinking a spoonful of Original Bisto powder, with 1½ sugars and milk. 

Decaf is simply a piss take. It's an affront to the Trades Descriptions Act. Do you know what my wife thought it smelled of when one was thrust under her nose? Watered down warm milk. I can think of many things worse to drink, but it should be called Hot Brown Beverage and not coffee. Maybe 'cophey' would be more appropriate - this product aspires to be something it can't be and is thus just allowed to be a homophone. 

Procrastinate Now!

Seems to have been the motto inside my head, especially since the middle of October when winter started looming on the horizon. To be fair, I haven't been productive at all this year; it has given me license to be a lazy fucker, but my get up and go got up and went at the prospect of a restricted winter and the last couple of months have been something of a blur of time and stuff. I moan a lot again, more than I have for a few years, but I think that's because everybody you're fortunate enough to meet - safely - since March has had one thing or another to moan about. I try to keep mine to the things I'm personally bewildered about rather than any old prospective outrage. I try to rage against our press as much as I can, despite my knowledge of tilting at windmills and in many ways my procrastination from general life has allowed me to burn out my rage at my fellow human beings who either can't, won't or refuse to look at arguments from another perspective.

This largely deals with politics, but the intransigence of people's beliefs has now made the internet it's most nasty since its creation. It seems hate and opposition are the two driving forces behind it; almost like it's been steered into that direction by people with agendas we know not of... I'm addicted to it like most others, but I am growing tired of being asked for my information before I can operate around it like I once did, or worse, to pay for something I once had for free, because someone somewhere managed to think of a way to monetarise something that was initially intended to be one world wide free communications system. People with money don't like free things, especially when they can make money from them. Plus, the internet gives you an excuse to be bored and unproductive.

One of the sidebars of my procrastination has been I've taken up playing on-line golf, mainly because the only games I really enjoyed in the early years of computers were golf simulations. You can just about enjoy it without spending any money and it's replaced the fact that even though I have a golf course within easy walking distance of my front door, I'm unlikely to play a round again - what with my shoulder and back and my popeye arm - it would be a recipe for injury. The game's quite accurate in that if you want to really get good you have to spend shit loads of money on 'virtual' equipment (or in a more accurate term: the more money you spend the less unpredictable the game becomes). 

Home Improvements

Best part of the year has been a clutter thanks to the wife's insistence that she is a reincarnated builder. As a result, one of the rooms had its contents distributed throughout the house, while she and my mate George turned it from a brick outhouse with negligible insulation into a proper bona fide room. In fact, she did such a great job it's arguably the best room in the house now.

The garden still floods. We're torn between growing rice or declaring it Scotland's 30,001st loch. 

I re-felted the shed roof (with help from George). Actually, it was half of the shed roof, but... you know... something.

Music, ennit?

Kairon: IRSE's album Polysomn was rated as the 8th best album in Finland in 2020 (giving rise to the question - what were the top 7 Finnish albums like?). It would have been my favourite album of the year, had it not been for an album released two weeks before Christmas by a Scottish folk band...

Yes, you did indeed read that correctly. Mr Eclectic - man of world music's hidden secrets - has rediscovered folk music and so much so that I listen to it far more than is obviously healthy.

The Laggenberry Man by Beluga Lagoon is an ace album. Beluga Lagoon Films has been an excellent source of celluloid entertainment and Andrew O'Donnell (and his two associates Mark Taylor and Blaine Abercrombie) are extremely talented musicians, travel guides, film makers and really seem like thoroughly decent guys. The stand out track on the new album is 'Sunrise', but 'Sunset' is a close second.

It's Beginning to NOT Look a Lot Like Christmas...

I know a lot of people who 'do' Christmas, the majority of the rest just appreciate it for what it has become, either by taking advantage of the days off or simply to practice their descent into alcoholism, but it seems that in the year of COVID, the shine has gone off of it even before Boris decided to shut the country down again from Boxing Day.

One of the crazy beautiful things about living in Wigtown (the size of a village in the South of England) is how compact and all-encompassing it feels, especially at Christmas. This was our fourth one here and the least Christmassy I can remember it ever being; in fact, with the exception of one or two houses, this was about the most low-key festive period I've ever witnessed. 

Our living room is very festive, but the rest of the house? It could be June if it wasn't so cold.

I've had less contact with people this year than since the late 1990s and those I have interacted with have been singing the same disdainful, angry and frustrated song - it goes something like, 'Isn't 2020 a load of shit and why doesn't anything make sense any more?' I think I wished my first 'Happy Christmas' about a week ago and whenever the subject has been brought up, most people have been moaning about how shit it's going to be unable to share vast quantities of largesse with people they don't communicate with 363 days a year. 

After four and a half years...

Brexit finally appears to be happening. It appears we won't be better off and we've learned that going it alone in a global world makes about as much common sense as running for parliament on a Flat Earth ticket. Oh and let's not talk about sovereignty, eh? The sad thing about it is it's unlikely to trigger mass 'I never voted for this' statements from the great unwashed, therefore the sense of schadenfreude that all us Remoaners have been anticipating isn't likely to happen and for the next few years we'll not see an awful lot different for the vast majority and isolated cases will be dismissed as 'bad losers' first and foremost, even if their story is pertinent.

I expect we'll return to the EU in about 15 years and it will probably be in a deal as close as the one we had when we left. I also expect the EU will have changed considerably by then and will focus on the essentials required for countries to work together. It will spark a rise in UKIP styled movements, but most of the hardened Leavers will be dead or too old or frail to do much but rail against the school leaver charged with wiping their arses.

Obviously the future is one big uncertain blob at the moment, COVID has changed everything, whether we like it or not. Most people don't like change too much, they prefer their dull boring existences because nothing too bad ever happens and we'd like to keep it that way. I just hope that it makes people more thankful for what they have always had and who to blame when they haven't any more.

Snippets

* I successfully grew runner beans this year. After over 20 years of trying, I knocked it out of the park this year!

* However, flooding destroyed 75% of my potato crop; stunted my beetroot, rotted my tomatoes on the vine and the short growing season made our attempts at growing squashes a wee bit fruitless. It's been a fantastic summer for growing, but we started too late.

* I discovered an on-line spice company called Red Rickshaw (well, Jones did, but I've used them now, so...) and they have relieved me of one of my main worries about living in a remote part of Scotland where the words 'curry leaves' are greeted with bemusement.

* If it was possible for us lowly folk to be able to nominate people for some kind of special award (and I'm sure it is), then our friends George and Julie should be given peerages. Talk about pillars of society during this fucked-up year. They have shopped for the vulnerable, run errands, fixed domestic appliances or sorted out problems. They have stepped in to help when others let people down, Julie has worked tirelessly, despite being retired, and simply doesn't know how to say no. George has been up on roofs, inside chimneys, been up to ears in shit just to ensure that his friends and their neighbours have had it easier and cheaper than if they relied on our unreliable handymen. Whenever they've been able they've gone back down south to sort out family problems, all the while ensuring they keep well socially distanced because of their 'home' duties. They are also fantastic friends and we're lucky to live near them.

* Most people I know have lost someone this year, even if it was only by association and not necessarily because of the virus. The problem with this year has it has allowed people to disassociate themselves from people not close by. I knew when I moved here that there would be people who have been constants in my life who I'd never see again and without wishing to sound cold and callous, this year has made it easier to forget some people. For all of its plus points, Facebook, specifically, has allowed us to be distant with people we used to be central. Someone disappears off social media for a few weeks and before you know it they've pretty much disappeared from your immediate life - it's like without a Facebook presence you don't really exist. This happened to a friend of mine, who simply decided that he needed to return to the real world by not going into the virtual one and nearly six months down the line he's happier than he has been for a while and as he said, 'People like you care enough to drop me a line and fortunately I have plenty of friends who do that.' 

This year has brought back that old idea of 'community' and I'm sure that will be monetarised as soon as someone works out how. Wanna help your neighbour? £25. Having an afternoon chat and a cuppa? £5 per hour. Crazy I know, but you'd never have guessed in a million years that our government would have spaffed so much money on giving their mates contracts for materials they had no experience with, so anything is possible. As some people keep saying, 'We're going to end up paying for all of this, one way or another!'

* So on that happy and optimistic note, I really do hope 2021 brings a few things: people starting to believe experts again without thinking everyone has an agenda. Maybe a world where people with agendas stop thinking everyone else has one would be start - altruism does exist, honest. I'd like people to stay safe and remember, everyone everywhere is in the same state as us, economies will always rebuild themselves if there are people to create them. When the world returns to normal, people will still want the things that are no longer there, so they will create them. Yes, it's unfair to all of those people who will lose everything because of this, but shit happens - you've known it all your lives. It's a fact of life - one of the ones that is often neglected to be taught in schools.

Have a better 2021 than you can hope for!