Doctor Who (2005) s01e13 – The Parting of the Ways

This episode just ought to be called Deusest Ex Machina because it turns out everything this season has been building towards is a giant reset for the series. Which does make sense, given the Doctor gets reborn whenever they recast, but it completely dismisses the idea of Christopher Eccleston having a significant role. It invalidates him over and over, even before the angel saves the day; in other words, if you’re okay with this Parting of the Ways nonsense and you gripe about “Battlestar”’s finish… you’re lying.

Worse, Noel Clarke and Camille Coduri are back. There’s an awkward conversation between Rose Piper and Coduri about the father’s death because Coduri doesn’t remember meeting her daughter in the past because… “Doctor Who”’s time travel logic is utter nonsense.

Shouldn’t matter, obviously, and if it weren’t just more awkward badness from Coduri and Piper it’d be fine.

See, once Eccleston resolves the previous episode’s cliffhanger in the cold open (or close to it), he sends Piper to the past so she’ll be safe from the alien invasion. Eccleston and John Barrowman have to try to save the day, which gets less and less likely as they fend off alien invaders. There’s some really weird stuff, like Barrowman apparently lying to a bunch of volunteers about how to fight the aliens. Then again there’s also the “Bad Wolf” resolve and it’s really, really bad. It’d be even worse if it wasn’t what drags Piper away from Clarke, who’s trying to wiggle his way back in when she thinks she doesn’t get to be a time traveller anymore.

There’s a little bit more with Jo Joyner as Eccleston’s lady friend of the week and Nisha Nayer and Jo Stone-Fewings have more to do as future humans. They’re all right. I mean, Joyner’s great, the others are all right.

It’s a Joe Ahearne directed episode so it could be a lot worse. And the vast bad CGI shots are… fine. I guess. They’re proofs of concept.

Russell T. Davies’s script has to do a whole bunch—send off Eccleston and resurrect the character, resolve the “Bad Wolf” thing, deal with the alien invasion, deal with the Piper arc. It’s a lousy send-off for Eccleston. Inglorious to the extremest.

It’s probably an impossible group of things to make run well but… Davies still manages to fumble it.

I wonder what next season’ll be like.

Doctor Who (2005) s01e12 – Bad Wolf

At least it’s got Joe Ahearne directing. I mean, it’s not terrible. Guest star Jo Joyner is a nice “romantic” interest for Christopher Eccleston, which is this standard thing where Eccleston and Rose Piper go to some time period and don’t spend any time together and Eccleston has this chaste but sincere connection with some lady. In this episode, they’re split by reality television and Joyner’s in Eccleston’s “Big Brother” house.

The episode opens with a flashback to the Simon Pegg episode and that White kid Piper replaced her brown boyfriend-in-name-only with for two episodes—and I spent the thirty seconds terrified White guy would be back.

He’s not. It’s a setup to this game show future—Eccleston, Piper, and John Barrowman all wake up in game shows not understanding what’s going on. Though Eccleston’s got a watch telling him what time he’s in and he doesn’t check it until after he’s been there for a while, because it turns out they’re in the Simon Pegg future, just later on.

Eccleston’s on “Big Brother,” where you get vaporized if you get thrown out, Piper’s on “Weakest Link,” where losing contestants get vaporized, and Barrowman is on an extreme makeover show with horny robots. Turns out whatever Eccleston and Piper did in the Pegg episode somehow made the future worse.

The episode’s Eccleston, Piper, and Barrowman all contending with their shows’ dangers—Piper’s got to contend with playing to win competitor Paterson Joseph, Eccleston’s got to escape (with housemate Joyner), and Barrowman’s got to… keep his head. Literally. Extreme makeover.

It’s all fairly compelling, though future humans Jo Stone-Fewings and Nisha Nayar go from unlikable “just following orders” characters—Eccleston’s got a great response to that line—to sympathetic a little fast.

There’s a big finale reveal—though not too big of a reveal because it was in the previous episode’s “Next Episode” teaser—also the “Bad Wolf” thing gets a lot more play again. The future TV company brainwashing the planet Earth is called “Badwolf.”

The cliffhanger’s rather effective, giving Eccleston a nicer “star” moment than he usually gets.

Doctor Who (2005) s01e11 – Boom Town

This episode is easily writer Russell T. Davies’s best so far. Maybe it helps he’s got Joe Ahearne directing, who’s even able to weather the Noel Clarke storm.

Though it’s a new Noel Clarke. A moody one who’s not hanging on Billie Piper’s every word hoping for a kiss. In fact, they suggest a physical intimacy foreign to their relationship.

But it’s not about Clarke and Piper, it’s about surviving Raxacoricofallapatorian villain (Annette Badland) from a two-parter about five episodes ago. Badland survived Christopher Eccleston taking out her fellow villains and set herself up as Cardiff mayor. Cardiff, once again getting crap from the show….

Anyway, she’s trying to get a nuclear power plant built for some reason and local reporter Mali Harries is suspicious. Well, more Harries notices anyone who opposes Badland ends up decapitated. Because Badland’s still doing her giant baby doll head alien monster eating the human thing. Cardiff’s not super busy apparently.

Eccleston, Piper, and John Barrowman are in town to “gas up” on Cardiff’s inter-dimensional rift (discovered in another episode this season) and Piper calls Clarke, then Eccleston notices Badland in a local paper and tracks her down. So it goes from a very odd—Clarke’s dynamic with Eccleston and Piper plus Barrowman—vacation day in Cardiff to something of a psychological showdown between Eccleston and Badland. Because long portions of the episode are the two facing off about morality and whatnot.

Badland was a farty joke in the previous episodes, so it’s a big surprise she’s absolutely phenomenal this time. There aren’t as many fart jokes this episode—there might not even be any (there are a few gassy jokes). But Badland’s awesome. Makes the episode.

Meanwhile, Clarke’s pissy about being Piper’s booty call or something.

Eccleston and Piper also discover the words “Bad Wolf” have been following them through the season, which is some hammer to the skull foreshadowing.

The ending’s a little too deus ex machina but it’s also at least thoughtfully resolved. And the show promises, once again, Clarke is gone for good this time. I’d say good riddance but I don’t believe he won’t be back next episode.

Doctor Who (2005) s01e08 – Father’s Day

I went into Father’s Day with high hopes; Joe Ahearne directing, Paul Cornell writing. I remember hearing about the episode (albeit vaguely) when it first aired because I knew Cornell’s comic book writing. So I went into the episode full of goodwill.

It’s all about the obvious kid going and saving their dead parent thing the show somehow pretends isn’t obvious. The episode opens with a flashback to Camille Coduri telling a young version of Billie Piper, played by Julia Joyce, about how her dad died when she was a baby. Then it cuts to this truncated cold open with Piper now asking Christopher Eccleston to take her to her parents’ wedding. Or something. To at least see her dad, played by Shaun Dingwall.

Once Piper’s seen the wedding, she wants to go hold Dingwall’s hand after he’s been hit by a car and is dying. Coduri’s already established Dingwall dies alone and it’s something Coduri’s really sad about her entire life apparently.

Except Piper’s not going there to comfort dying Dingwall, she’s going there to save him, which eventually results in time demons attacking London. The show hasn’t done the “don’t un-kill people” warnings, which has been kind of nice, but the pseudo-rift Piper’s action causes between her and Eccleston is one of the episode’s many fails. There’s a lot of crisis stuff with the cast, as Eccleston and Piper help the eighties folks barricade themselves into a church while Dingwall slowly comes to understand what’s going on.

But there’s also… Eccleston getting to needle Coduri in the past, which doesn’t play, Eccleston being nice to new bride and groom Natalie Jones and Frank Rozelaar-Green, which does play for some reason, in addition to Eccleston being mad at Piper, Piper being weird around Coduri (and Coduri hating Piper), and then the obvious Dingwall and Piper stuff.

It’s packed.

And none of the important threads connect.

The time demon sequence is intense and Dingwall’s excellent, but whatever they thought they were doing, they don’t. It should be a singular and instead it’s pedestrian.

Doctor Who (2005) s01e06 – Dalek

Okay, this one requires some disclaimers. First, when I watched the last episode and saw the preview of this one, I thought it looked terrible. Like, rolling my eyes terrible. Second, I was visually familiar with the Daleks from growing up in the eighties and whatever. I thought they were silly and decidedly not cool.

Having now seen Dalek, I can confirm they are decidedly not silly as well as not cool. They’re also a terrifying, phenomenal alien villain race. And astonishingly bad-ass. The episode’s great—going into Christopher Eccleston’s hatred of the Daleks when unexpectedly confronted by one while Billie Piper’s got sympathy for the alien, so there’s a lot of great character development and so on—but it’s also got a series of amazing action sequences with the Dalek. Even on the reduced budget (director Joe Ahearne does a fantastic job, with the same director of photography, Ernest Vincze, who’s light the worst episodes now doing fine), the Dalek attacking soldier after soldier and person after person… it’s also horrifying. So good.

The entire episode. So good. Robert Shearman’s script is outstanding, finding just the right balances with the Dalek stuff–including humor—and stays strong all the way to the finish.

Eccleston and Piper get thrown off course at the start, finding themselves six years in the future—2012—and in a sort of museum of alien objects. American businessman Corey Johnson—imagine a macho version of Mark Zuckerberg, but filtered through 2006 Steve Ballmer–it’s not entirely successful but it’s interesting while it’s not successful and then once Johnson’s working against his own survival, it’s awesome so it’s all fine.

The “it’s all fine” elements include Anna-Louise Plowman not being able to keep her American accent—new Piper love interest Bruno Langley gets to play a Brit even though it’s set in Utah. The show doesn’t seem to have Piper’s romantic life figured—she’s got zero chemistry with Langley and roll her eyes whenever Eccleston jokes with her about it. But it doesn’t matter because once Piper runs into the Dalek, it just gets great.

There are optics to Piper replacing brown-skinned former boyfriend with nerdy White guy Langley but Piper was so chemistry-free with the last one and even more so with Langley… if it was intentional, it was a fail.

Anyway. So good. Eccleston’s amazing, Piper’s great… Nicholas Briggs is awesome as the Dalek.

Dalek aims high and succeeds over and over. Just fantastic stuff.

Writer Shearman, director Ahearne, Eccleston, Piper, Briggs, they do some superior work here.