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.

The Haunting (1963, Robert Wise)

What makes The Haunting so good–besides Wise’s wondrous Panavision composition–is the characters. Yes, it succeeds as a horror film, with great internal dialogue (Julie Harris’s character’s thoughts drive the first twenty minutes alone and the device never feels awkward), but those successes are nothing compared to the character interactions.

The Haunting chooses to be both definite and understated with the truth behind its supernatural elements. Gidding structures his conversations about the supernatural very carefully, leaving the viewer to constantly question previous events, creating a palpable uneasiness.

In that uneasiness, Gidding is able to create these evolving character relationships. The one between Harris and Claire Bloom is, for example, the practical backbone of the entire picture. It allows Harris’s character to, for lack of a less cute term, bloom. But the relationship is in constant flux, especially since the audience hears a lot of what goes on in Harris’s head–but not Bloom’s. It’s very interesting to see what Gidding is going to come up with, in the dialogue, next.

The structure of the opening–the film starts with Richard Johnson introducing the haunted house aspect of the story, then moves entirely to Harris for a while–gives Wise and Gidding a fine opportunity to introduce the characters to each other and they fully utilize it. There isn’t a single character without a unique dynamic with another–lots of the Haunting is four people in a room talking (Russ Tamblyn being the fourth).

Also superior is Humphrey Searle’s score.

3/4 ★★★

CREDITS

Produced and directed by Robert Wise; screenplay by Nelson Gidding, based on a novel by Shirley Jackson; director of photography, Davis Boulton; edited by Ernest Walter; music by Humphrey Searle; production designer, Elliot Scott; released by Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer.

Starring Julie Harris (Nell), Claire Bloom (Theo), Richard Johnson (Dr. John Markway), Russ Tamblyn (Luke Sanderson), Fay Compton (Mrs. Sanderson), Rosalie Crutchley (Mrs. Dudley), Lois Maxwell (Grace Markway), Valentine Dyall (Mr. Dudley), Diane Clare (Carrie Fredericks) and Ronald Adam (Eldridge Harper).


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Daylight (1996, Rob Cohen)

Stallone is Kit Latura, disgraced EMS chief (he cared too much). Besides the name, Stallone’s just the disaster movie lead and not even any interesting one (besides the caring too much). There aren’t even any Stallone grunts in the movie and he plays it straight and as well as anyone can play the terrible script. Daylight is a terrible attempt at a disaster movie as it forgets a couple of the golden rules of the genre. First, have a recognizable cast. Jay O. Sanders might barely qualify, but whoever plays his wife (Karen Young–and she’s awful) is not. And the less said about Sage Stallone the better. The second broken rule is to make the characters likable. With the exception of Stallone and security guard Stan Shaw, there isn’t a single sympathetic character trapped in the (unnamed) tunnel. In fact, when Viggo Mortensen dies, it’s a relief, since it’d have been awful to spend the rest of the movie with him around.

Besides the plotting problems, the script’s generally awful–bad dialogue, bad characters–but Daylight‘s not abjectly bad. Rob Cohen is a boring director, but he’s not bad. The sets are all very intricate and impressive (the other visual effects, terrible CG and silly composites, are not), even if the action occurring on them is mediocre at best.

When he’s not spouting off terrible character development dialogue, Stallone’s keeping the movie going. At the beginning, when it’s amusingly ludicrous, he gets some help from Dan Hedaya. Then, in the tunnel, a little from Shaw. Eventually, he’s got to push ahead himself and, at that point, Daylight gets particularly long. Maybe it’s because the ending is straight out of The Goonies.

Randy Edelman’s score is awful, Amy Brenneman is awful, Barry Newman is hilariously awful. Trina McGee is okay in one of the smaller roles and Vanessa Bell Calloway’s fake Caribbean accent (it goes in and out of course)–at least makes her scenes funny.

It’s funny to think of disaster movies as a complicated art form, but Daylight certainly proves they’re far from easy to make successful.