Too complicated?

Well last time I did Torchwood so really I have to do something about the original, best and slightly controversial Doctor Who series 6.

Following Doctor Who, I actually realise how much it’s grown and evolved and bettered itself every year since The Doctor first took Rose Tyler’s hand back in 2005 and said “Run!” And it’s not just the show itself that has bettered itself so consistently, the tabloid press’s relentless knocking of the show has also got more sophisticated. Back in series 1, the mindless complainers were all over the place. The episode Dalek was criticised for the line “Canoodle or spoon or whatever you British do.” Canoodle?! Before the watershed! What has happened to standards? I heard someone say “fiddlesticks” on Blue Peter the other day too!! Next up, the BNP (and I suspect the Daily Mail agreed, if not publicly than privately) had a go claiming that Doctor Who was “promoting multicultural relationships” because Rose was going out with Mickey. 1) That’s so clearly not a bad thing. 2) It’s so clearly not true. Rose lives in a tower block on the Powell Estate. Mickey on the other hand lives in the next tower block along on the Powell Estate. Two TOTALLY different cultures…that share a Post Office…living literally hundreds of seconds away. Finally in the first series, The Sun decided that Captain Jack’s character was awful and sleazy, an argument rather ruined by being on the third page of the paper next to a sexy woman in her pants standing in a pool of water up to her thighs (I don’t remember if she was or not, but 95% of the time that’s true). BTW, if Doctor Who or Torchwood are worried about Jack being a bit sleazy, why not put a speech bubble above him with an awfully well-informed opinion in it that he clearly has never said, I think that makes it ok.

In 2010, when Matt Smith took over as the Doctor, the criticism from the papers was primarily that “he’s too young.” He’s playing a 907-year-old! Were they expecting William Kempe or Christopher Beeston to come out of retirement, death and decay to play the part? Other popular criticism was that “It’s just not the same without David Tennant, he’ll never be as good as David Tennant.” As a fan of nostalgia I liked this one, because it took me back to the good old days of “He’ll never be as good as Christopher Eccleston” in 2005. Or that “Amy Pond is too sexy,” okay, I concede that one, but is it really a criticism? It’s like saying Dominoes Pizza is too tasty or Have I Got News For You is too funny.

So the criticism for the current series has been, comparatively, very good. It’s still utterly wrong and silly though. “Doctor Who is too complicated.”

Is it?

I mean, yes it’s complicated. Doctor Who Confidential spent 13 minutes explaining River’s story the other day. There are overlapping, interwoven plot strands that don’t happen in the right order, and copy-cat cloning craziness. But TOO complicated? You have to focus on what’s going on. It’s the kind of show that you can’t update twitter while you watch it, or you’ll miss something. It expects you to keep up with it, to notice things, and not to go and make a cup of tea, that’s just good TV, shouldn’t all TV be aspiring to do that? When we talk about a good book we want a “page-turner” (or “button-pusher” if you have a kindle) or a quote from a newspaper/magazine saying “you literally wont be able to put this book down.” Aside from the appalling misuse of the word literally, this is what we should expect from our TV and Doctor Who delivers that.

Follow it closely and you should understand it. Well “get” it anyway, understand is perhaps an inappropriate word for a Steven Moffat script. After all this series did end with all of time happening at the exact same minute that could only be put right by the Doctor getting married and kissing River Song. While the last series ended with all of time being destroyed in 102AD but took place largely in a museum in 1996 that survived by being close to the heart of the explosion. Stephen Hawking downloaded the episodes onto his wheelchair’s computer and it crashed as he tried to get his head around it. But actually, it does kinda work. Not scientifically, but the show always has reasons and lines to explain why it works, it’s all there for you to find.

I am now definitely an adult - this was made abundantly clear to me when I went out with friends on the first day of Fresher’s week - and Doctor Who is a kids program. As going up to small children in the street and engaging them in conversation can get some odd looks - wearing a bow tie, eye-patch and fez to make my motives clearer only made parents drag their children away faster - I can’t really speak on behalf of the target audience and how complicated they find it. So it shocks me that so many morons feel that they can and write to the RadioTimes and give opinions to newspapers to say that it is definitely too complicated for kids. One woman wrote to the RadioTimes to moan that after the show her kids would come to her with questions about it that she couldn’t answer. I want to assure her that there comes a time for every parent, and it must be sad but it’s perfectly normal, where their kids realise their mummy doesn’t know everything (sorry mum), but I’m sure they’ll still respect you. At least I assume that’s the bit you’re worried about, because it would be mad if you were complaining about your growing children engaging with, questioning and analysing what they see on TV.

I’m sure there are children out there who don’t understand it, and for the younger ones especially I concede it may be too complicated. But I don’t like that grown-ups assume that kids wont get it, the notion that kids are all thick is a horrible lie. For the kids who aren’t old enough to appreciate the complexity though, there’s still plenty of Doctor Who to enjoy. Look at the scary monsters. Look at the funny man in his daft hat. Watch the first 20 minutes of any episode written by Steven Moffat and you’ll realise he spends months dreaming up as many mad ideas as he can and then packs them ALL into the first 20 minutes of an episode. Leading to lots of crazy running about, monsters, live chess, a Sontaran nurse, fish-fingers and custard, a man in a fez carrying a mop appearing out of nowhere, a trail of post-it notes leading Amy to a big box that contains her future self and the cave of skulls. For a younger viewer some of the story may get lost, but you can’t deny it’s fun and engaging for them.

Doctor Who has always worked on different levels for different people. I would hope that no children got the dirtiest lesbian joke you will ever see pre-watershed in A Good Man Goes To War (Lesbian #1: “I don’t know why I stay with you.” Alien-Lesbian whips out her amazingly long tongue and uses it to zap a tied up guard). That’s nothing new though, David Tennant’s Doctor joked about Ronnie Biggs and rubber fetishes, all of that probably went over the kids heads. Back in The Sun Makers during the Tom Baker days, kids probably had no idea why it was funny that in an episode about a planet being heavily taxed, the bad guys were called the Inner Retinue or why they run down the P45 corridor. Grown-ups like the jokes about the Inland Revenue. Kids like the running down corridors. It’s the way Doctor Who has always been.

The woman who wrote to the RadioTimes, who I’ve decided to call Miss Guided-Fool, mentions not knowing the answers to questions. That’s because she wrote into the RadioTimes around the time of The Impossible Astronaut/The Day Of The Moon ie. 2 episodes into a 13 part series. The papers would like to have us all complain that it’s far too complicated and therefore awful but, this is the series I’ve discussed most with my friends. After most episodes I’ve phoned my friend Luke to discuss all our thoughts and theories and in the final weeks, Me, Luke and Lee have been sat up until the early hours going through everything we know trying to work out how the Doctor will not die given that we’ve clearly seen it happen. It’s complicatedness is what makes it so much fun for us, trying to second-guess Moffat, then realising Moffat will be expecting us to second guess him so we have to third guess him and so on, until it’s 5am, we’ve 100th guessed Moffat and we know he’ll do the 101st thing that we can’t work out.

Working it out is the fun of a good story arc (although Moffat has indicated that next series will be less arc-y). It sadly does mean that episodes that don’t directly relate to the arc feel a bit of a waste of time. I think even if it was relevant the pirate episode might still have felt like that, but for the most part those episodes are still fun, and enjoyable if you haven’t been following the series as a whole. If you do follow the series properly like I do though, you realise all your confusion and hours of sleep loss trying to piece the plot together are worth it. Watching without distractions has paid off, and it’s full of back references and exciting “Oh it’s him again!” moments. I was really cheered by Charles Dickens’ brief appearance in the finale, and Churchill’s back, and that guy’s dead which means this is…the robot from Let’s Kill Hitler! I think this was best done in series 5 finale where Episode 12 opened with Van Gogh (from Episode 10) painting a pic which arrives on the desk of Churchill (from Episode 3) who calls River (from…it’s complicated) who steals it from Liz 10 (Episode 2), then later the Doctor goes back in time to that weird bit where he’s got a jacket on (Episode 4) and to when Amy waited for him (Episode 1). Yeah, that is all, a bit complicated, but each time one of those came around I jumped up higher than before when I realised what was going on.

If there is one area in which I would say Doctor Who is getting too complicated, it’s too complicated for it’s timeslot. I don’t mean Saturday tea-time, I mean the fact its 45 minutes. After loads of episodes this series, I felt they needed an hour to live up to the full potential of the story. Take Night Terrors for example, a good concept with really creepy dolls. Lots of scary build up and beautifully directed (the TARDIS appearing in the puddle deserves an award), but let down by an ending that takes about 2 minutes and leaves too many loose ends. It’s like they can’t have as much fun as possible with the dollhouse and leave time for a good resolution. It’s the same with Closing Time a hilarious episode, that script is packed tight with jokes and so many excellent scenes. But then the Cybermen are defeated far too quickly in a kinda-been-done twist. I think the episode does a classic villain a bit of a disservice, by making them easily defeatable and under using them, something that might have been avoided if the story had longer to play with. Especially annoying as earlier in the series The Doctor blows up an entire Cyberlegion before the titles just to make a point. I will never criticise that moment, because it is so very very cool - Moffat pre-titles sequences are the best - but when you do it twice in one series, you do think “What’s all the fuss about these metal guys? They seem easy.”

Speaking of endings, the series finale. I’ve watched it twice now and it is an odd ol’ episode. I really really like it. I like it a lot. But I don’t know that I think it’s any good.

I think that’s because it promised us a lot, but didn’t deliver much of what it promised. We get the classic Moffat opening 20mins. Live chess, dinosaurs, trains in the Gurkin, the Let’s Kill Hitler robot, the cave of skulls, and the turning point when the Brigadier dies (Lee was watching it with me, I had to try hard not to cry). Awesome moments like: “It’s ok as long as there’s only a few of them” *looks at other arm,* “It could activate at any moment,” “It has.” and “An office/train!,” the wedding, and we get the resolution of the Doctor’s death at Lake Silencio fromThe Impossible Astronaut. But something just doesn’t feel right, and I think the reason is, that this wasn’t a finale, it was just dressed to look like one. It was a crew of tiny people in a robot disguised to look like a finale. We were told “Silence Will Fall.” It didn’t. We were told “Silence Will Fall when the question is asked.” It wasn’t asked. We got no goodbye scene with the companions, except that was kinda in The Impossible Astronaut right at the start when he invites them so he has them there when he dies and again when he leaves them behind in The God Complex. The Doctor’s “death” merely introduces us to the idea that he’s now going to be much more low-profile and let most of the universe believe he’s dead. This isn’t the end of a story, this is just the next installment in a bigger story. It plays the same role as say A Good Man Goes To War gives us some answers but pushes forwards a bigger plot. Silence Will Fall, just not yet. It’s changed who the Doctor is and how he operates. It’s still a big game changing episode, just goes about it in a very strange way. And yeah, it probably is good. Looking forward to the fall of the eleventh!

PS. River's Timeline explained