Much Ado About Nothing (2011, Josie Rourke and Robert Delamere)

The best thing about Much Ado About Nothing, except the dialogue, is Delamere’s direction. Not the stage direction, Rourke did that job, but Delamere’s direction of this recording. There’s some ho-hum headroom stuff going on to keep actors in the shot, but it’s a phenomenal showcase of the actors’ performances. They don’t credit the editor, which is a shame. Thanks to Delamere, watching Much Ado really does feel like seeing a play. It’s very cool.

Rourke stages the play as… an eighties sitcom. The location is Gibraltar, the prince and his men are British navy, with the rich people apparently Brits, the workers are—primarily—Spanish. There’s no colonizing awareness, which is disappointing, but it’s just another item for the disappointments list. The setting does involve constant boozing from the entire cast, which proves interesting—if everyone’s making these decisions while wholly bombed, it changes things a bit. Or could. Much Ado’s setting—besides providing amusing costume choices, a gimmick for Dogberry (John Ramm), and some soundtrack selections—never actually matters.

It’s fine. It’s a good play—with some terrible toxic patriarchal bullshit—and the acting’s good, but as it progresses, the setting makes some of the play worse. Having Claudio (Tom Bateman) and the Prince (Adam James) be in naval uniforms while being viciously cruel to civilians is a look. Though nowhere near much of one as having their showdown with ostensibly grieving parents Jonathan Coy and Anna Farnworth, which Rourke stages in the church where Bateman has just denounced and assaulted fiancée Hero (Sarah MacRae). One of Much Ado’s caveats is the relationship between Claudio and Hero is patriarchal garbage. And Rourke finds a way to make it worse.

Of course, the point of Much Ado isn’t MacRae and Bateman, it’s David Tennant and Catherine Tate as the leads. As much as Benedick and Beatrice are the leads in a full-length production. There are long stretches without any Tennant or Tate. And then the third act when they’re background for most of the drama. Their first love scene, which is very amusing as far as a sitcom take, ends up dramatically inert. It’s also a letdown—staging-wise—after Rourke’s big slapstick and screwball swings in the second act, which both Tate and Tennant excellently realize. Though Tennant much more. She has to do real stunt work. Tennant has to bump into things.

Neither Tate nor Tennant get through the third act particularly well. Tennant tries hard for a good falling out with Bateman and James, but it barely plays. Partially because Bateman’s third act histrionics are so wanting, but also because Tennant just can’t crack it. Tate just doesn’t have the material. Natalie Thomas—as Margaret—makes much more of an impression. To the point I assumed she and James would make eyes at one another as the Prince ends up very much the protagonist of the last few minutes, his honor restored; Much Ado doesn’t have very high bars for officers or gentlemen.

Clive Hayward does best in the third act, the friar now a Navy chaplain, and Coy’s okay again once he gets all his patriarchal ranting done and realizes he should maybe believe daughter MacRae over some random dudes just because they’re rich. And Thomas—she’s good, she just takes time away from Tate, who’s the initial big draw until Tennant gets to show off.

So for the first two acts, everyone’s first-rate. Not Bateman. He’s acceptable but never out of his depth (though again, Claudio’s problem isn’t the performer, it’s the play, with Rourke aggravating it). Tennant’s great, Tate’s great. James is great. MacRae has some good scenes. Elliot Levey is a wonderfully smarmy Don John.

Oh, and Ramm. Ramm plays Dogberry as a paramilitary goon who idolizes Rambo: First Blood Part II. It’s an appropriate enough take—I mean, such a good idea Caddyshack II did literally the same thing with Dan Ackroyd—but it doesn’t go anywhere. And Ramm’s on one of Much Ado’s other inglorious lists… the actors who use feyness as a homophobic punchline.

Tennant leans on it as well. With Ramm, it’s to encourage the audience to laugh at him; with Tennant, it’s to encourage the audience to laugh with him. Because Rourke’s Benedick is a shitty cishet white man comedian. I think some of the other actors fall into it as well, but I didn’t mark them. Tennant does Shakespeare well, and having him screw it up is disappointing.

Though it’s Rourke’s fault first and foremost.

It’s a good staging of the play with some excellent performances, and Delamere does a magnificent job directing the recording. It’s also a lot more rotten than it needs to be. Much Ado About Nothing, the play, has enough problems you don’t need to add colonizing and homophobia to it.

The alcohol abuse works, though.

Doctor Who (2005) s04e18 – The End of Time: Part Two

I don’t know much about “Doctor Who”’s casting history but I did happen across how this episode is Tennant’s last because he quit. So when he’s going through what seems like an eon of histrionics before becoming the new Doctor—you’ve never appreciated Christopher Eccleston’s exit more—which includes him whining about not wanting to leave….

He wanted to leave. He wanted to leave and writer Russell T. Davies gave him a very embarrassing send-off for it.

Eccleston they at least waited to embarrass until he’d left.

Or it was Tennant’s idea, which is a strange, bad choice.

But no one gets off “Who” very well, not as they bid the Doctor farewell… I guess no spoilers but let’s just say they manage to crap on Freema Agyeman one last time.

The episode’s really well-paced again—this Christmas and New Year’s specials feel like four episodes, not two—and there’s some more good stuff with Tennant and John Simm. Every once in a while, you get a great glimpse of how great Simm and Tennant could’ve been as alter egos… if only for different directors and writers.

Bernard Cribbins figures in big. Like, annoyingly big. He plays the big scene like a comedy sketch, which director Euros Lyn can’t compensate and the whole thing backfires. That backfire continues into the pseudo-epilogue, pseudo-prologue.

I’ve already heard enough about the series to have some concerns for where the show’s headed next—even before I knew Alex Kingston was going to be a regular—and the end tag does nothing to dissuade those concerns. Not just the new Doctor, but the inane scale of the regeneration, which never pretends to be anything but a cliffhanger setup but it’s a bad one. It’s a bad choice.

Tennant had been lucky with the Christmas specials (until now, obviously). They were never bad. Not like when “Who” is bad.

But the show gets you every time. No one escapes a shitty farewell.

Doctor Who (2005) s04e17 – The End of Time: Part One

At least the Ood are doing okay. They’ve gotten Brian Cox to voice their leader even.

Sorry, getting ahead of myself.

The End of Time: Part One aired a year and a half after the last regular episode, so it probably played a lot different on air than marathoned. Which isn’t going to make Timothy Dalton’s narration good—he’s off screen for most of it, narrating writer Russell T. Davies’s version of foreboding Christmas exposition (Dickens Davies ain’t… also who wrote Mickey’s Christmas Carol, that narration was much better too)–but it might make you forget Davies has just used the same kind of lines in the same kind of crises.

Except instead of a “Doctor Who” supporting cast mega-crossover, Time: Part One is all about David Tennant finding out he’s doomed in his current incarnation but the universe is in trouble too. At least they don’t say the stars are going out. Davies loves the stars going out.

Anyway.

Back on Earth, Bernard Cribbins—who manages admirably to get through these “Doctor Who” episodes while never being particularly endearing or good, just not bad and unlikable—is the only person who remembers his nightmares, which is a big deal because everyone in the universe is having bad dreams about John Simm.

Not John Simm, the actor, rather his “Who” character—from two seasons ago now I think—The Master. He was the second-to-last of the Time Lords who would rather have died than be Tennant’s sidekick.

Turns out Simm started a cult in order for a bunch of ladies to resurrect him—really—only things don’t go right and instead he’s a little off when he comes back, eating lots of meat and absorbing the flesh off people. There’s a weird Christmas food monologue you’ve got to imagine really hit home with grease-loving Britishers.

Cribbins is trying to get in touch with Tennant, getting his fellow pensioners to help him look—including wonderfully horny June Whitfield—while getting messages from a mysterious woman in a pantsuit, Claire Bloom, telling him not to tell the Doctor they’ve been talking or something.

Eventually we get Cribbins and Tennant teaming up, which is nowhere near as amusing as whoever thought it was a good idea thought it would be, and trying to stop Simm from whatever he’s got planned.

Actually, whatever he’s able to get planned once rich guy David Harewood kidnaps him to repair an “immortality gate” for daughter Tracy Ifeachor. Harewood and Ifeachor should’ve passed on this one, “Doctor Who” Christmas special or not.

The acting from Tennant and Simm has its moments—director Euros Lyn can’t handle the dramatic conversation scenes and it’s unfortunate they didn’t get someone who could—and it’s amusing. It feels like a double-sized episode, even though it’s basically a one and a quarter.

Simm loses the big moment at the end to Dalton, who spits his way into an onscreen narration performance.

There’s a really weird Obama thing—he’s going to end the global recession—and everyone wants to watch his address; it’s concerning on many levels.

But since Obama’s president it means making “Master Race” jokes isn’t racist anymore, apparently.

Doctor Who (2005) s04e13 – Journey’s End

Journey’s End opens with one of the series’s biggest cliffhanger cop-outs–and “Who” is all about the cliffhanger cop-out, so it’s actually a surprise. If the opening titles hadn’t already given it away, I guess.

This episode reveals the villains’ master plan and features them seemingly defeating Doctor David Tennant at every turn. If writer Russell T. Davies hadn’t introduced the deus ex machina early, there might be some tension about whether or not Tennant and company make it through. It’d just be so sad if he died now he’s reunited with Billie Piper.

Apparently it’s straight up they had a romantic—albeit unrequited—love, which isn’t how any of their episodes played especially not once she recruited ex-boyfriend Noel Clarke (who appears here) for the ride. But whatever. Make it all about giving Piper’s character a better ending.

Of course, Piper’s finale is nothing compared to Catherine Tate, who manages to get a more inglorious sendoff from the show than Christopher Eccleston—who just got forgotten like he’d done something wrong—harsh as his crime was not being David Tennant as Doctor Who, who himself wasn’t even David Tennant as Doctor Who yet.

Anyway.

No spoilers, but if you were intentionally writing “Doctor Who” to be full of layered misogyny, I don’t think it’d turn out any different than this episode turns out for Tate. It’s one hell of a flex from Davies.

The evil plan is kind of silly and better effects would help but not going to happen. What else… Camille Coduri is back too. She and Clarke team up with Elisabeth Sladen, which is closer to fun than you usually get with Coduri and Clarke.

It’s also one of those episodes where Tennant does his super-serious thing when he’s upset and it gets old really fast. And the way they end the season is just… unfortunate. It’s all really unfortunate.

Especially since Davies’s villains are better than they seemed last episode, occasionally even funny. More funny would’ve helped. More funny and a better subplot for Freema Agyeman, who manages to be a featured guest star but still get the shaft.

Because “Doctor Who” is about blowing off everyone but Piper, apparently, in a mad chase to bring her back to the show or something.

Whatever.

A friend of mine’s been worried I’m going to turn into one of those “Doctor Who” evangelizers who tells everyone to watch it.

I told him not to worry.

Doctor Who (2005) s04e12 – The Stolen Earth

I started The Stolen Earth with some reservations thanks to the previous episode—a de facto prologue—which managed to both waste and diss Catherine Tate simultaneously, but the first scene won me over a bit. It’s an exterior street scene with Tate and David Tennant and it’s actually shot well. There’s no telling how much better this show might be with better lighting from Ernest Vincze (in general, though this episode too).

Not to mention the CGI. There’s a lot of grand scale CGI this episode and… it’s not good. It’s not even on par with the non-CGI “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” which is a bummer. If “Who” were ever going to deliver on visuals, Stolen Earth would be the time to do it.

The episode kicks off the two-part (three-part including last episode, which should count but apparently doesn’t) season finale… it’s the end of the world. The end of all worlds.

Though we don’t see the all worlds, because Billie Piper’s already here on Earth and now it’s time for Tennant to find her and why isn’t he more excited (because it’s the end of the world, Donna).

Anyway.

Right after the opening scene—and the last good exterior lighting in the episode—the Earth disappears and the TARDIS stays in place. Cue opening credits, including the full “Doctor Who” revival cast (well, not Christopher Eccleston but whatever)—Freema Agyeman, John Barrowman, Elisabeth Sladen, and Billie Piper! In addition to Tate and Tennant, obviously. Written by revival creator and main writer Russell T. Davies!

The first half or so of the episode—which is really well-paced regardless of the questionable special effects–is the “Who” sidekicks trying to figure out what to do without the Doctor. Finally they all figure something out by working together—well, with the help of a special guest star, whose inclusion is nice but just points out how the show failed them (though failing your actors is the only singular thing about “Doctor Who: Phase II”)—and are able to get Tennant to Earth.

Tennant and Tate have been hanging out at the Shadow Proclamation, which isn’t a document but a (poorly CGI-rendered) place, where there are some aliens in charge and then the Rhino cops from last season. The Rhino cops are just comic relief then gone (they’re probably there for last episode’s teaser).

It’s time-killing with a lot more emphasis on the Earth sidekicks, with Piper sheltering with Tate’s family, Bernard Cribbins and Jacqueline King, and Agyeman reuniting with mum Adjoa Andoh (the other four people in the family are completely forgotten). Piper goes from being a badass interdimensional warrior last episode to mooning over absent Tennant, albeit with a giant gun (she looks like she’s walking around with a guitar).

Once the episode—just about halfway through, not even the cliffhanger—reveals the villains, things pick up a bit. Especially since Piper and Agyeman move on out of their respective shelters and the companion supporting cast energy drain goes away.

There are some predictable moments with the reuniting and the villains, with a bit of a cheap cliffhanger device too, but if you’re going to assemble a bunch of likable actors—almost Piper this time too—and have them dramatically goof off around sci-fi, you could do a whole lot worse than Stolen Earth.

Also, am I the only one who thinks “Torchwood” crossover guest star Gareth David-Lloyd looks like Zach Morris?

Doctor Who (2005) s04e11 – Turn Left

Welp, figured out what Catherine Tate was doing while last episode filmed and David Tennant was on his own… she was filming this episode, with Tennant now the Superman III Margot Kidder.

Tate goes to a fortune teller (Chipo Chung, in a particularly inglorious return to the show after she was a major supporting character last season, albeit in full costume) who tricks her into never meeting the Doctor in the first place—two Christmas specials ago—and thereby changing the fate of the universe itself.

So what we get—in addition to this alternate history to the show’s timeline, where London becomes Nazi Germany before a further dystopian thing and it gets so bad even White British people become refugees—is Tate being really kind of annoying. Not good. Very weak character. Turns out if she didn’t meet Tennant, she would’ve gotten more and more shallow and more and more ignorant of current events—be they aliens or concentration camps—and just miserable to be around.

Though she does eventually patch things up a bit with mum Jacqueline King, who’s not good in a more dramatic role. Makes you wonder what the auditions are like for the companion’s mom part—“we want you to be unlikable no matter what the context.” Bernard Cribbins is fine but he’s no longer cute as Tate’s grandfather. He’s one note. Having your granddaughter go off and save the universe while traveling through space and time didn’t make Cribbins or King any more interesting, apparently.

Or Russell T. Davies just writes thin characters and they cast people who can’t add enough.

I haven’t even gotten to the big deal of the episode: Billie Piper is back. She’s back across dimensions not telling anyone her name so there’s not a dimensional collapse or whatever and she’s trying to convince Tate to help her save the universe.

I mean, I guess the episode’s well-paced? Like, there’s a lot. When Tennant gets back from Bermuda or whatever, he’s got a bit of time so they can set up the next episode. See, Tate’s got a message from Piper and it’s the end of the world and time for a “Doctor Who” crossover event (based on the upcoming episode teaser). Though presumably not across multiple shows.

Also, Tennant also realizes Tate’s subplots are all about alternate universes so he thinks it might be important, which is of course different than a lazy, reliable way to gin up an episode, give your lead an alternate life to play.

Anyway.

Two more episodes to the season, I’ll bet it’s a “two-parter,” as Turn Left doesn’t count enough to be a proper first part apparently.

Piper’s better than I remember her, though she also doesn’t have the entourage. We shall see.

Doctor Who (2005) s04e10 – Midnight

Midnight is kind of great.

Also kind of not.

It’s a strange episode for a couple obvious reasons. First, the Doctor (David Tennant) doesn’t have a companion with him when he needs one. He and Catherine Tate are on a pleasure planet resort and she wants to sunbathe not go on a tourist outing. It’s a diamond planet (literally made out of diamonds, diamond mountains, and so on) and the sunlight is lethal to humans so they’re in protective glass all the time. And shielding. Shielding is important.

So presumably it saves some budget only having a handful of establishing shots.

Off topic a moment because the episode reminds so much of “Star Trek”—but when it comes to lousy CGI establishing shots, which is often a “Who” standard, can’t you just get a matte painter? Bad CGI establishing shots are nowhere near as effective as a good matte; especially not for a TV show.

Anyway.

So it’s a strange episode because Tennant is alone. More alone than any other episode he’s been on or anything the season he wasn’t on yet.

Second reason it’s strange is because it’s an obvious Lifeboat setup. All the action takes place in a future travel bus vehicle, which finds a new route across the planet and complications ensure, causing the assortment of characters to panic in all the familiar ways. They eventually turn against Tennant, who’s all of a sudden oddly powerless without his capital A authority.

It’s particularly striking because it’s a bunch of humans who turn against him and the Doctor loves the humans. Hopefully writer Russell T. Davies will come up with a satisfactory explanation for it all.

He does. With a “Star Trek: The Next Generation” device.

So it’s like a mix of “TOS” and “TNG,” but “Doctor Who.” Not just one “Who” either, but two—former Doctor David Troughton guest stars as a… racist, misogynist professor who treats his protege (Ayesha Antoine) like complete shit.

It was weird when I thought Troughton was director Alice Troughton’s dad. It’s weirder when you find out he used to be a Doctor.

Good acting from Tennant, Antoine, and sometimes Lesley Sharp. Okay acting from Colin Morgan, Troughton, and sometimes Rakie Ayola. Daniel Ryan and Lindsey Coulson are bad, which hurts in a Lifeboat.

Is it weird I’m more curious what Catherine Tate did with her non-shooting time? She’s Margot Kidder in Superman III in this episode.

Doctor Who (2005) s04e09 – Forest of the Dead

During this episode I made two very unfortunate observations. First and more unfortunate but less damaging… Euros Lyn has really not been keeping up with the latest “Who” narrative devices. It just feels different. When it shouldn’t. It’s weird. But not too damaging to the episode overall. It’s a lot, it’s not a surprise Lyn couldn’t crack it.

The damaging thing is Alex Kingston, who’s the de facto companion this episode because Catherine Tate’s off doing the more important and potentially better subplot where writer Steven Moffat clearly has more ideas but instead we stick with guest star Kingston and her mysterious future history with David Tennant. Because she’s bad. At some point during her talking to someone, I flashed back to “ER” and Kingston’s forehead doing the same things and remembered realizing she’s not good and wasn’t good on “ER” and she’s not good on “Who.”

Doesn’t help Tennant’s being weird too. Given how much chemistry Tennant’s had with pretty much every female character since his first episode—like, he sexed up the Billie Piper stuff palpably, hell, even the Camille Coduri—but he’s got nothing for Kingston. It’s part of the serious Doctor thing he’s doing around her.

At some point they have to go to the core of a planet, sadly not to see the Devil, and then there are some other reveals and then there’s a big twist or whatever and a call back to the previous episode and finish. And blah.

Meanwhile Tate gets this poorly executed good idea for a short movie and at least gets to do some acting.

My indifference to Tennant these days is concerning. The romantic Doctor stuff is not successful. Not here, not last season, not for ages. They push too hard, like with the constant jokes about he and Tate not dating (nearly every episode).

For a big deal two-parter, Forest of the Dead is probably better than the previous episode—even with Kingston—just on the strengths of the Tate material. Though I don’t know, the end is pretty bad. It’s at best a shrug and definitely not on par with creepy stone angels.

Doctor Who (2005) s04e08 – Silence in the Library

Silence in the Library is writer Steven Moffat’s first episode since last season’s big deal killer stone angels episode starring movie star Carey Mulligan. No movie star guest star for Silence, rather “she made it in Hollywood on ‘ER’ and now she’s back in the UK” Alex Kingston. I mean… it was pre-streaming. It was prestige. Ish.

Also Colin Salmon. Colin Salmon’s a pretty solid guest star.

Salmon’s in the hook too.

The episode opens with psychiatrist Salmon checking on kid patient Eve Newton, who sees this giant library whenever she closes her eyes and now all of a sudden David Tennant and Catherine Tate appear, Newton screams (kid in danger, not a “Who” norm, got to take it up a notch), and cue titles.

When the show comes back, it’s back to normal—i.e. from Tennant and Tate’s perspective—and he’s brought her to the universe’s largest library. It’s a whole planet of books. Moffat’s sparing no expense with this one. Lots of big ideas.

Like dying people being trapped in their communicator devices—imagine if the predictive text on your phone was predictive voice and kept going when you died—and good old monsters like killer shadows who then inhabit space suits with skull faces.

The space suits come from Kingston and her team of interstellar archeologists—Tennant hates interstellar archeologists incidentally, which seems to surprise Kingston—who are at the library on an expedition for apparently shitty rich guy Steve Pemberton.

There’s a likable bunch of potential victims—Sarah Niles, Josh Dallas, Harry Peacock, O-T Fagbenle—plus Pemberton’s assistant, Talulah Riley, who isn’t smart but she’s hot and no one listens to her and Tate is nice to her because Tate seems to realize poorly written “stupid” characters are the worst.

Except not even Tate listens to Riley when it’s important and the results are tragic. Then things just race towards getting us to the “to be continued,” with Moffat taking the additional swing of having Kingston knowing Tennant from his future. And they seem to be intimate.

So apparently at some point in the future Tennant gets a libido and uses it on the female costar he’s had the least amount of chemistry with in his entire time on the show, which sort of draws attention to Tennant being nowhere near as fun in the role as he used to be.

His serious Doctor thing these days just comes off camp.

Anyway.

Big cliffhanger. But not really, of course. “Doctor Who” cliffhangers are pretty perfunctory at this point. Lots of “Doctor Who” is pretty perfunctory at this point.

Doctor Who (2005) s04e07 – The Unicorn and the Wasp

Again, not going to look into it, but I’ll bet there’s some kind of story with the Susie Liggat-produced episodes. She does like three a season, then nothing until the next season. And they sometimes more involve women, sometimes not. This one seemingly more involves women because the done-in-one companion is Agatha Christie, played by Fenella Woolgar. In some ways, it reminds of last season’s Shakespeare episode as far as….

Oh.

Writer Gareth Roberts wrote last season’s Shakespeare episode. Not a Liggat.

Anyway. Roberts uses the same joke about David Tennant or his companion (Freema Agyeman then, Catherine Tate now) making references to the guest starring author’s oeuvre before that work had been created.

It works better with Shakespeare than Agatha Christie. Especially since the episode just serves to show how little Christie actually has to do with the genre she helped create. Outside the occasional Poirot or Marple namedrop—wait, are they all BBC, does BBC have corporate synergy—Roberts doesn’t come up with anything particularly Christie-y. It seems like he’s doing a riff on Clue(do), with Christopher Benjamin as Colonel Mustard (Hugh here), Ian Barritt as Professor Plum (Peach here), and so on. It’s not exact, but here’s a Professor Peach in the observatory with a lead pipe line or something. Maybe two of them. If Roberts is trying to do an homage to Christie, it’s a peculiar one; it’s to the more familiar knock-offs.

The beginning of the episode, when it’s doing the mystery genre thing, is a lot better than the end of the episode, which involves intergalactic wasps, bad memory transmissions, and a shockingly bad Felicity Jones. She’s in the episode from relatively early but doesn’t get anything to do until the big detective reveal scene with Tennant as Nick Charles. It’s an “eh” scene overall but Jones sinks it a little more.

Also bad is Tom Goodman-Hill.

Felicity Kendal is great as the Colonel’s wife and lady of the house; she’s the one throwing the party for Woolgar. The episode takes place at the “Silver Spoons” house, just before Christie’s infamous disappearance. The episode does really poorly with that subplot.

The episode goes wrong and never corrects. Roberts’s script has a first act but nothing else… especially not for Woolgar. It seems like Christie should be a choicer part.