Dawnshard by: Brandon Sanderson

 

Sometimes I am convinced that Brandon Sanderson picks a book to write based on the trope archetype that he really wants to see written and Dawnshard is one of those moments.  It’s a novella for The Stormlight Archive written for The Way of Kings Leatherbound Kickstarter as a special release for backers in 2020 before being released to the general public in 2022.  2020 saw the release of Rhythm of War and Sanderson quickly despite the length of the novel, there are still plot points that deserve explorations for supporting and more minor characters than is possible in the traditional novels.  Rysn and Lopen are both characters who have appeared in the main installments of The Stormlight Archive, but Rysn’s story was limited to the interludes while Lopen only has a few point of view chapters to himself, and even those are under the Bridge Four banner.  Dawnshard’s narrative is told essentially through their points of view exclusively, though not alternating by chapters nor is it pairing the characters up as a double act, Sanderson instead telling a story that both of them just feature which is a departure from Sanderson’s normal use of dual points of view.  This also allows an exploration of a part of Roshar away from where the main action of The Stormlight Archive has generally occurred, Navani Kholin sending Rysn with Lopen for protection (and Rysn’s own ulterior motives) to the Oathgate in Aimia while Rysn’s queen is concerned for a disappearing crew.  Dawnshard is Brandon Sanderson’s attempt at a nautical mystery, though not quite an attempt at writing a pirate narrative.

 

The title for Dawnshard is actually slightly a spoiler, the climax of the novel revealing the titular Dawnshard is the cause of the troubles that need to be solved which is kind of a shame as despite the title this isn’t really a book about the Dawnshard.  Sure it’s the McGuffin that drives the plot and the climax of the novella, but really it’s a character examination for Rysn and Lopen.  Both characters are disabled characters, Rysn being a wheelchair user while Lopen has only recently grown back a missing arm.  Disability plays an interesting role in Dawnshard as Sanderson has set up Roshar to reflect modern day attitudes towards disabilities with the interesting bigotries that come with it, however, Dawnshard never becomes completely about the disability.  Lopen for instance has a character arc that examines his extroverted nature and how it is essentially a coping mechanism for feeling lost has he has integrated into a new family in a completely different society while still keeping his large Herdazian family.  Much of his arc is feeling inadequate as he builds to swearing the third ideal of the Windrunners, something that he eventually does swear yet it surprises him with its acceptance, reflecting Lopen’s need to go with the flow.  Rysn on the other hand as a wheelchair user reflects the nuanced perspectives of someone with a disability, never not capable, but held back in several ways by a world that is inaccessible while also believing certain accessible aspects are actually inaccessible and vice versa.  Rysn’s point of view throughout is one of an intelligent woman in a world that has to learn to value her specifically.  Unlike other disabled characters, her disability is something she is always aware of and partially defines what she is able to do, something that feels refreshing as disabled characters are often portrayed as not letting their disability define them.

 

Overall, Dawnshard as a novella is generally great for its character study, but like Edgedancer it is a side step in a much larger story meaning that it doesn’t stand on its own nor does it extend the main thrust of The Stormlight Archive.  The character work and worldbuilding are something that Sanderson excels at however and you’ll especially love it if you’re already invested in the Cosmere.  8/10.

The Girl in the Fireplace by: Steven Moffat and directed by: Euros Lyn

 

“The Girl in the Fireplace” stars David Tennant as the Doctor and Billie Piper as Rose Tyler with Noel Clarke as Mickey Smith and Sophia Myles as Madame de Pompadour.  It was written by: Steven Moffat and directed by: Euros Lyn with Helen Raynor as Script Editor, Phil Collinson as Producer, and Russell T. Davies and Julie Gardner as Executive Producers.  It was originally broadcast on Saturday 6 May 2006 on BBC One.

 

Steven Moffat’s contributions to Russell T. Davies’ time as showrunner are fascinating as he is the only writer other than Davies to contribute scripts to each of the four series, immediately after contributing “The Empty Child” and “The Doctor Dances” he was approached to write “Madame de Pompadour” with ideas from himself about evil statues attacking a library in space that would materialize in future series.  Moffat became enamored with the idea of the Doctor falling in love with the historical Madame de Pompadour throughout her life in a non-linear fashion.  Moffat was largely inspired by The Time Traveler’s Wife which he would later go on to adapt as a miniseries, a work that would also reflect later aspects and characters in several of his other Doctor Who episodes.  “Madame de Pompadour” went through several titles including “Every Tick of My Heart” and “Loose Connection” before becoming “The Girl in the Fireplace” and slotting as the second episode of the series, before being moved to the potential opener, and finally the fourth where Moffat would add the character of Mickey Smith to the proceedings.  “The Girl in the Fireplace” is an episode that provides an examination of Doctor Who through the eyes of Steven Moffat.  His time as showrunner is often described as having a fairy tale quality with the Doctor as a mythic hero, and this is the episode where that originates.  The juxtaposition of setting the episode in pre-Revolutionary France throughout the life of Madame de Pompadour, played by Sophia Myles, and a dingy spaceship that has broken down in the 51^st century may not sound like a fairy tale, but the presentation is what cues these comparisons.  Euros Lyn’s direction is lavish in the historical setting despite being shot on location in Wales and in studio.  This is amplified by the antagonists of the episode being robots made from clockwork, camouflaged in period clothing.  Striking images and beautifully crafted from the costume and props departments for the episode.  The cold logic of why they are opening these portals into the life of Madame de Pompadour is fascinating and only fully explained to the audience in the striking final moments of the episode.

 

The Doctor under Moffat was written as the only child left out in the cold in “The Empty Child” and “The Doctor Dances” which is brought further in “The Girl in the Fireplace” to be the lonely angel.  Dialogue is taken directly from Paul Cornell’s 1992 novel Love and War to describe the Doctor as the person who the monsters get nightmares about, though in this context it is less a critique of the Doctor’s character but a mythical figure coming in to be the imaginary friend and savior.  The moment where the Doctor and Reinette link minds and she sees the deepest insides is fascinating from a perspective as it still casts the Doctor as an outsider, something that is more apparent with the loss of his home and people, it also casts him as a god which is a characterization that does not fit who the Doctor should be.  The premise of the episode’s romance is one that leaves quite a few poor implications as the relationship is one that should be outright negative: it’s an obsession based on these brief dalliances with the Doctor in the role of a protector, not lover, Reinette falling in love with the idea of the Doctor.  Tennant does, however, play it incredibly well with this, “School Reunion”, and “The Christmas Invasion” being the three major defining episodes for who the Tenth Doctor will be.  It’s amplified by the fact that the time between meetings for the Doctor is only a matter of moments and not the several months and years, as well as this detached attitude towards the danger.  Moffat, while writing Reinette as the precursor to several of his other female characters in a number of ways, really plays the danger up by allowing her into the Doctor’s world, represented by the spaceship, for just one brief moment, one that sees her actively repulsed by the danger.  There is also some souring by the choice of casting Sophie Myles who actively defended Noel Clarke against the several allegations of sexual assault by several different women.  Speaking of Clarke, he and Billie Piper as Mickey and Rose are sadly pushed to the background which for the character of Mickey is a shame as this is his first trip in the TARDIS.  Rose gets to at least be his guide which leads to some very fun scenes and interactions, with her one scene against Myles’ Reinette being a highlight on how the Doctor can affect people, but other than that this is an episode focused on the Doctor and Reinette and really nobody else.

 

Overall, “The Girl in the Fireplace” is an episode with issues.  The lavish production, imagery, and ideas are great on the surface, but when investigated further have some worrying implications and in particular play the Doctor as the highest authority, something that they should never be portrayed as (at least not uncritically).  David Tennant and Sophia Myles are the two that carry the episode, though it’s often the visual details that elevate several of its elements.  It's essentially Steven Moffat’s Doctor Who boiled down to one episode with many of the flaws and strengths that come with it plus the issues of being moved around in the series order multiple times caused multiple rewrites that make it a distinct step down from his previous story for the show. It’s a further indication of the issues surrounding the second series of the revived Doctor Who and its inability to have a full plan for where the show is going.  7/10.

Who Mourns for Adonais? by: Gilbert Ralston and directed by: Marc Daniels

 

“Who Mourns for Adonais?” is written by Gilbert Ralston and is directed by Marc Daniels.  It was filmed under production code 33, was the 2^nd episode of Star Trek Season 2, the 31^st episode of Star Trek, and was broadcast on September 22, 1967.

 

There is something fascinating about episodes of Star Trek that are so clearly reflective of the culture and attitudes of the 1960s but also attempt to show how attitudes have completely changed in the far future.  “Who Mourns for Adonais?” is one such episode, opening with a scene where one of two female characters, episode guest star Leslie Parrish playing Lt. Carolyn Palamas, is objectified by Kirk, McCoy, and Scotty after turning in a report.  Palamas will be this episode’s object of desire as the Enterprise is stopped in orbit around a planet where the Greek god Apollo, played by Michael Frost, demands to be worshipped specifically by the humans on the Enterprise.  This is the only episode written by Gilbert Ralston and there is a very good reason as to why that is, mainly it’s an episode that has only about 20 minutes of plot that has been stretched out to an hour.  The central idea of the gods of myth being aliens while not an unknown trope at the time of this episode (Doctor Who had played with variations of the idea in the serials The Aztecs, The Myth Makers, and to a lesser extent The Daleks’ Master Plan in 1964, 1965, and 1966 respectively), it would be the publication of Chariot of the Gods, a piece of pseudo-history, and its subsequent documentary in 1970 that would catapult the trope to popularity.  Star Trek has already done several instances of god-like aliens in episodes like “The Squire of Gothos”, among others, which have far more interesting things to say about the idea of god like aliens than “Who Mourns for Adonais?”.

 

The title of the episode is taken from Percy Shelley’s Adonais, a reflection on the death of Keats, which is something the episode lacks.  Apollo as a character is quite shallow, a relic of a bygone era which has been replaced by one god, heavily implied to be the Christian God in line with the cultural norms of the 1960s.  It actually feels quite out of place for a show like Star Trek to even imply the Christian god, as the show itself has been very secular in its philosophy and presentation up to this point and Ralston clearly has no interest in exploring any of the implications of Christianity being the dominant religion in the future, just transplanting the fact of it being the dominant faith in the time and place he is writing in.  A lack of exploration is the principle error with “Who Mourns for Adonais?”, while the god presented is Apollo, there is no characterization beyond general god, not even a member of the Ancient Greek pantheon if we are being honest.  While there shouldn’t be an expectation for one ‘canonical’ portrayal of these mythological figures, this episode fails to define Apollo’s place in the pantheon so he is more presented as a man with the powers of a god, lusting after a woman like every other human man in this episode.  This could be a statement on the nature of the gods and their many affairs with mortals, but it doesn’t work as Apollo while certainly having affairs isn’t Zeus, the king of affairs.

 

Bringing this down further is the clear budgetary restraints of the episode, cutting between three locations: the bridge, a small temple, and a small grove, the later being a brief setting.   The episode is primarily set at the temple so there is actually very little cutting away to be done and the pace of the script drags everything out.  As soon as things cut away to the Enterprise, the episode actually improves simply based on the charisma between Leonard Nimoy, Nichelle Nichols, and George Takei, the three essentially sharing a subplot about trying to fix the ship with some genuinely great character moments, but they also amount to just filling time.  Walter Koenig as Chekov also gets to have some actual character defining moments after being a background player in “Amok Time”, his Russian heritage and youthful sense of humor bringing some much needed relief.

 

Overall, “Who Mourns for Adonais?” proposes a far more interesting question than Gilbert Ralston is interested in examining.  It’s an episode that plays its premise completely straight and limits itself to only two major locations so the pace drags out to the full hour runtime with Marc Daniels being unable to liven things up with his usual directorial skill as well as treating its major female character as an object, dating the episode terribly.  There are a couple of good performances and some of the initial scenes are genuinely great, plus whenever we’re back on the ship things pick up, but it’s an episode that just doesn’t come together at all well.  4/10.

This is How You Lose the Time War by: Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

 

This is How You Lose the Time War while published in 2019 to great acclaim has been undergoing a reappraisal and resurgence due to a Twitter account promoting it.  It was because of this Twitter account and some friends’ recommendation that I decided to pick it up and read the novella quite quickly.  As a novella it comes in at just under 200 pages and is remarkably cohesive despite being written separately by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, assisted by two polar opposite writing styles with each author writing one of our protagonists’ perspectives.  This is aided by the novella being mostly an epistolary structure between these two agents for warring groups going up and down several time streams.  A basic premise perhaps, but much of the joy from This is How You Lose the Time War is the exploration of the relationship through these letters.  The Time War itself is an abstract concept, El-Mohtar and Gladstone never being entirely clear on the motivations for each side, whether or not one is justified while the other is slighted, a perfect decision for a novella which can be read as about the injustice and utility of war using a conflict that nobody can remember.  The only other significant character outside of the two agents is one of the agents’ leader who serves as the antagonist and one of the few characters with an actual presence.  The Commandant represents the Agency and there is this real sense of cosmic horror throughout the novel once the purpose of This is How You Lose the Time War as a love story is revealed.

 

This character was largely Gladstone’s contribution to the narrative as he wrote the sequence of Red’s perspective, while mirroring the character with Red herself, far more a taunting character than the other agent from the initial letters and the character more resistant to falling in love.  The romance in the novella is one that almost defines falling in love, the characters finding further clever and curious ideas to communicate.  The love truly feels like a rabbit hole of possibilities and connections between these two enemies.  El-Mohtar’s contribution to the novella is the perspective of Blue and these letters are where some of the fascinating worldbuilding is done.  The Time War is being fought in several universes where the slightest change can have the butterfly effect.  There is a sense of culture being explored and fought with the War itself heavily implied to be a total secret in certain strains and all out war in others.  Strains and personal timelines can be altered and communication through the agents has evolved far beyond the need for traditional language creating an alien disconnect between reader and character, the agents not being human (or at least not just being human).  There is something ethereal to the way the love story actually plays out due to the setting though not falling into the trap of an LGBT love story being othered, it’s very much a normal thing and the love itself is beautiful.  The final line of the book is also something that manages to sit with the reader long after you finish reading.  Perhaps this review has been brief, but I’ve avoided major plot spoilers and even then that’s difficult to describe but This is How You Lose the Time War is in fact a masterpiece.  10/10.

School Reunion by: Toby Whithouse and directed by: James Hawes

 

“School Reunion” stars David Tennant as the Doctor and Billie Piper as Rose Tyler with Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith, Noel Clarke as Mickey Smith, Anthony Head as Mr. Finch, and John Leeson as the Voice of K9 Mk. III.  It was written by: Toby Whithouse and directed by: James Hawes with Helen Raynor as Script Editor, Phil Collinson as Producer, and Russell T. Davies and Julie Gardner as Executive Producers.  It was originally broadcast on Saturday 29 April 2006 on BBC One.

 

One element Russell T. Davies always wished to include in his revival for Doctor Who was a returning guest appearance for one of the original series companions as an idea to explore for a modern audience what it would mean for a companion to leave the Doctor.  The pitch was titled “Old Friends” and initially penciled for the back half of the second series, giving Doctor Who a full year to establish itself as successful without an overreliance on the original run.  Davies chose Sarah Jane Smith, played by Elisabeth Sladen, as the companion to return, Sladen being convinced after Davies and Phil Collinson informed her that Sarah Jane would be the focal point of the episode.  Scripting duties were given to Toby Whithouse, a friend of executive producer Julie Gardner, with the brief that it must include Sarah Jane and K9 as returning characters, though no specifics in terms of what the story would be about, giving him free reign to choose a story.  The first treatment of the episode to materialize was called “Black Ops” involving aliens at an army base and increasing the intelligence of nearby townsfolk that Sarah Jane would be investigating without K9.  Whithouse, however, found this difficult so Davies suggested setting an adventure at a school, taking inspiration from Dark Season (Davies’ first television project from 1991) and the controversial work of chef Jamie Oliver over school lunch and dinner menus.  With these changes, the storyline became “Friends Reunited” as scripting began before becoming “School Reunion” as the former was a reference to a social media site popular in the UK at the time.

 

“School Reunion” is the first high point for the second series of Doctor Who, though not without its flaws.  After two episodes of varying quality, Whithouse’s setup is simple and solid: Mickey Smith calls the Doctor and Rose back to Earth to investigate a school where half the staff have been replaced and there are whispers of missing children.  Now, the later point is revealed in the pre-credits sequence to be children being eaten by at least the head teacher Mr. Finch, played by Anthony Head, is sent a student with a headache who has no home to go to and gets promptly eaten alive in a chilling sequence.  The Doctor is incognito as a physics teacher while Rose is working in the cafeteria where one of the lunch ladies has a hot oil spilled on her, causing her to burst into flames.  These are some genuinely dark scenes, but the presentation and direction from James Hawes plays them for almost dark comedy which really makes the tone of the episode work quite well.  Anthony Head as our main villain brings a gravitas to the role, in every scene turning on a devilish charm and making the main confrontation with the Doctor a sublime scene for both characters.  Finch is a Krillitane, a composite species that appropriates aspects from the species they conquer into their DNA (a fascinating concept making it a shame the creatures haven’t returned), and their goal in the episode is to become masters of reality, something that the Time Lords would usually interfere and stop, but since the Time War left them dead only the Doctor is left.  There is this temptation of the Doctor joining them, David Tennant playing it very stoically and Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane desperately pleading that everything must end and die or else there would be no point to life.  Tennant plays the episode as an almost celebration of life and the Doctor’s history, meeting Sarah Jane with a smile on his face and beaming at the reveal of K9, once again voiced by John Leeson.

 

Much of “School Reunion” is also focused on Rose having to realize that the Doctor has had previous companions.  Now, this story posits that Sarah Jane was in love with the Doctor, something that Davies believes true of every companion and something that I just don’t see.  Sarah Jane isn’t interested in resuming her travels, more intent on helping out on Earth, but there is a great concern for Rose.  Rose is generally not well served by the plot, increasing her jealousy with the script positing the Doctor having never mentioned having any previous traveling companions before.  While the scene where Rose and Sarah Jane bond over their past adventures and the quirks of the Doctor is great, the scenes between the two before this moment are almost entirely unbearable, the jealousy and envy being explicitly romantic.  Elisabeth Sladen and Billie Piper are both doing a great job throughout the episode exploring the first real time two companions have interacted for an extended period of time (The Five Doctors really only had minor interactions).  This is also the first episode where the treatment of Mickey Smith notably regresses from his development in the first series.  The Doctor is antagonistic towards Mickey, rolling back their mutual respect for one another established in “Aliens of London” and “World War Three” and present in “The Christmas Invasion”, making fun of him for being frightened of the danger and discovery of freeze dried rats in the school that cover him.  The idea that Mickey is the “tin dog”, implied to be a third wheel that just isn’t important feels like a considerable disservice, especially as he rescues the students and provides them with a way out of the school at the climax, framed as him learning to not be the tin dog.  It’s a framing that ignores his actions in “World War Three” where he saves Jackie Tyler and provides the missile that defeats the villains and “The Parting of the Ways” where he provides Rose the support to save the Doctor.  The episode ends with Mickey joining the TARDIS team which will continue this weird antagonism between him and the Doctor and further regressing both characters.  One final issue, there are the occasional pieces of dialogue about Rose and Sarah Jane’s appearances that have aged quiet poorly and are just mean spirited such as the implication that Rose needs to stay thin and beautiful for the Doctor and at Sarah Jane’s age.

 

Overall, “School Reunion” is helped greatly by giving Toby Whithouse the freedom to tell whatever story he felt was appropriate.  While there is the clear influence of Davies’ views of the classic series and classic series companions, it does succeed on exploring what comes after life with the Doctor and establishes Rose’s realization that she will be with the Doctor through her own ends.  There is a powerful performance by David Tennant here when confronting a threat that wishes to enter the upper echelon of the universe, making themselves gods and using children as a computer to do it.  The guest cast is brilliant and an extra bonus is not focusing on the students themselves so any lapses in child acting are minimal.  Aspects have aged poorly and the portrayal of the Rose/Sarah Jane dynamic is incredibly messy with some character development being rolled back, but it’s a genuinely great episode and a good gateway for new fans to have a portion of the classic series to explore.  8/10.

Royal Assassin by: Robin Hobb

 

I feel like I should acknowledge that this review is going to be a bit problematic since the only thing I can think of comparing Robin Hobb’s Royal Assassin to is one of her male contemporaries.  Where Assassin’s Apprentice was a coming of age story, Royal Assassin is a book which feels like A Game of Thrones, despite being published the same year as George R.R. Martin’s landmark in fantasy (in fact Hobb was published five months prior to Martin), but that’s the most accurate comparison to what Hobb is doing here.  This is a novel that’s far more interested in the political machinations that act as fallout to the ending of Assassin’s Apprentice, it's a battle of wits between Fitz, Verity, and Regal, essentially two against one, with enemies outside of the Six Duchies on the Red Ships throwing any of Fitz’s plans into disarray throughout the novel.  The political game being played is played perfectly, Hobb building on the world’s general fear of the Wit and Skill magic systems perfectly while Regal clearly knows that Fitz must have some sort of magic, though not knowing the extent of his abilities nor a immediate pathway to prove it and use it to his advantage.  The game of cat and mouse is fascinating as because the novel is exclusively from Fitz’s perspective, we don’t actually know if Fitz is the cat or the mouse at various points, with evidence pointing to both ways at several points in the novel.

 

There is one plot thread of Royal Assassin that irks me and that is oddly enough the relationship between Fitz and Molly, a ladies’ maid at Buckkeep.  Molly was a supporting character in Assassin’s Apprentice and the romance between the pair is something that is clearly set up to be tragic which is great, but the way Hobb plays it harkens back to more classic romance tropes that I honestly don’t really gel with.  Molly as a character feels at several points that she only exists to serve Fitz and his romance and doesn’t entirely have a character of her own.  The relationship is one that grows increasingly strained and eventually breaks in a scene which is genuinely heartbreaking, but this comes after so much time spent inside Fitz’s head lacking a real sense of Molly being presented with her own agency which is especially odd since the other female characters don’t suffer from this.  This easily could be an example of Fitz being an unreliable narrator, but even if that is the case it’s something that just left me wanting.

 

What didn’t leave me wanting was Fitz’s journey of self-acceptance with the Wit and the Skill.  One of the scenes from Assassin’s Apprentice which stuck in the front of my mind was Burrich taking the dog Fitz was bonding with as a child, something that has clearly traumatized Fitz.  Early in Royal Assassin there is wolf cub, Nighteyes, which Fitz saves from abuse and slowly bonds with.  He has to let this wolf into his mind and be willing to open himself up to others, something difficult to truly do due to his own isolation throughout life.  It’s a journey of self-acceptance as Fitz continually wishes to deny this, but has his mind opened to how wide the world really is and how complex people actually are.  Hobb makes Nighteyes truly inhuman, thinking in terms of the pack and bewilderment at the way humans lack a deep sense of sharing on all levels.  Nighteyes makes Fitz better and more functional as a human being, and when Fitz fails at the climax of the novel it’s essentially Nighteyes who saves him as they are bound for life.

 

Overall, Royal Assassin is a novel that manages to be longer than Assassin’s Apprentice while only having one thread that keeps this from being perfect.  Robin Hobb’s tone and writing style suits this story perfectly as she draws you in while improving slightly to make the pace work even better, with only the issues of Molly and Fitz’s relationship really bringing it down from being a prefect novel.  Once again it leaves things on a cliffhanger with glimmers of hope for the characters we love, though none of them are in the best place.  8.5/10.

Tooth and Claw by: Russell T. Davies and directed by: Euros Lyn

 

“Tooth and Claw” stars David Tennant as the Doctor and Billie Piper as Rose Tyler with Ian Hanmore as Father Angelo, Derek Riddell as Sir Robert, Michelle Duncan as Lady Isobel, and Pauline Collins as Queen Victoria.  It was written by: Russell T. Davies and directed by: Euros Lyn with Simon Winstone as Script Editor, Phil Collinson as Producer, and Russell T. Davies and Julie Gardner as Executive Producers.  It was originally broadcast on Saturday 22 April 2006 on BBC One.

 

When I reviewed “New Earth” I made mention of the hectic production schedule of the first two blocks of the second series.  “Tooth and Claw” is perhaps the largest result of those production issues.  Russell T. Davies, knowing that during the first series “Boom Town” came about due to Paul Abbott’s script for the eleventh episode had to be dropped, decided to commission extra scripts in an attempt to avoid this occurring with the second season.  “Fear Her” which took the eleventh slot of this series is an instance of a backup script being used, however, this second series would need a second backup script to be produced after a veteran writer fell through for not following Davies’ pitch for the story involving kung fu monks, a werewolf, and Queen Victoria, leading to Davies writing the script last minute and pushing the production to the second production block.  Initially titled “Queen Victoria” and “Empire of the Wolf” before settling on “Tooth and Claw”, Davies’ script is one that’s full of a lot of ideas.  The idea of kung fu monks was implemented into the script because Davies thought the visual would be cool and that director Euros Lyn would have fun shooting them.  The kung fu aspect of the monks only actually comes up in the pre-credits sequence of the episode which is an action sequence of the Torchwood Estate being overrun by the monks.  The monks, led by Father Angelo played by Ian Hanmore, then spend the rest of the episode as the house’s servants and the way Davies writes the script makes it seem like for the first half of the episode the audience shouldn’t realize anything is wrong.  Yet, the pre-credits sequence is a setup for dramatic irony where the audience knows the servants have been replaced but the script doesn’t use the potential of dramatic irony.  Cutting the pre-credits scene would add quite a bit of mystery and altering it to just establish the premise with Queen Victoria would allow for more time to build the dread and oddities.

 

The monks wish to turn Queen Victoria into a werewolf, the werewolf being a lupine alien that inhabits the body of children taken from their homesteads in the area.  The way this exposition is revealed is quite nicely done, split through myth and dialogue from the humanoid form of the werewolf, and finally in the defeat of the monster who by the end just wishes to die.  The attempt to humanize the creature comes at the last minute after the episode turns into a fairly standard base under siege style story.  The full moon is out at the halfway point of the episode and the werewolf leads the Doctor and Rose on a chase through the estate with the Queen.  The monks use mistletoe to contain the wolf in the estate which is then used against the wolf before destroying it using a telescope built with far too many prisms and the Koh-i-Noor diamond.  It’s kind of a standard Doctor Who plot that’s executed fairly well with the above issues with the pre-credits sequence, and you can kind of feel Davies having to struggle to get the episode out there.  David Tennant and Billie Piper are the highlight of the episode overall, a running joke is a bet between them to see if Rose can get the Queen to say ‘we are not amused’, but Piper’s performance is perhaps slightly stronger than Tennant’s as Piper is allowed to rally the servants to rescue themselves and fight.  It’s the little moments like this that highlight the better parts of Rose’s characterization even though this second series emphasizes the romantic aspect that has never worked for me.  Pauline Collins as Queen Victoria is also quite capable, though don’t expect any real criticism of the British Empire here which has always felt a bit out of place in the work of Russell T. Davies, especially as there are episodes that will be very critical of the modern world.  There are points where it’s almost lampshaded, especially with the Doctor pretending to be Scottish and their cover story for Rose being a feral child who has escaped and been bought by the Doctor, but Davies doesn’t go further than a jab or two.  Queen Victoria exiling the pair and establishing the Torchwood Institute in memoriam for the dead which is going to be this series general arc, though Torchwood won’t really come up in any large capacity until the finale unlike the first series which had very specific character arcs running through it.

 

Overall, “Tooth and Claw” is an episode that is perfectly fine at what it’s attempting to do.  There’s a lot of potential here if there was time for a few more drafts and an excising of the kung fu action sequence of the monks which doesn’t sadly come back at all later, the monks being a secondary threat.  Tennant, Piper, and Collins are the three who are selling it while Euros Lyn directs the non-action scenes splendidly (the action especially in the pre-credits sequence is incredibly choppy).  This is definitely a step in the right direction for the series as Tennant has slipped into the role and the character dynamics are a callback to the first series, but it’s an episode that’s just perfectly average.  5/10.

Salad Daze by: Simon Furman with art by: John Ridgway and letters by: Annie Halfacree

 

Salad Daze is written by Simon Furman with art by John Ridgway and lettering by Annie Halfacree.  It was released in Doctor Who Magazine issue 117 (October1986) and is reprinted in its original form in Doctor Who: The World Shapers by Panini Books.

 

With Doctor Who Magazine’s shift from a principle writer to a rotating group of writers working at Marvel UK it means that this back half of the Sixth Doctor’s time on the strip can go to some very weird places.  Salad Daze is one of those incredibly weird places.  Simon Furman provides a single, eight-page comic story set in the TARDIS and then in Peri’s head, going through a pastiche of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland but with vegetables added in characters and the Doctor as the White Rabbit.  This is because Peri has been trying to get the Doctor to eat healthier and she needs to be taught a lesson (or at least that’s what the final two panels of the strip imply).  For such a short story Salad Daze is just really mean spirited towards Peri and for whatever reason has saddled her with Mel’s personality.  This could be because The Trial of a Time Lord was in the process of airing when this strip was released and the comics may have wished to use Mel but couldn’t because she hadn’t debuted when Furman’s strip was set to release or maybe Ridgway’s art was done with Peri, either way both Peri and the Doctor are vastly out of character in this strip.  While short plots can work for the strip, Steve Moore’s The Collector was brilliant in a single issue, this one just comes across as cruel and shallow.  There isn’t a depth or really an idea running through it outside of wanting to do an Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland pastiche for the sake of it, yet not making it feel even a fraction of the imaginative nature of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.  Ridgway’s art is pretty and it’s clear he wants to be working with better material, so it’s at least pretty to look at and is quite short.  4/10.

Amok Time by: Theodore Sturgeon and directed by: Joseph Pevney

 

“Amok Time” is written by Theodore Sturgeon and is directed by Joseph Pevney.  It was filmed under production code 34, was the 1^st episode of Star Trek Season 2, the 30^th episode of Star Trek, and was broadcast on September 15, 1967.

 

There is something fascinating about watching Star Trek for the first time with the sheer amount of cultural osmosis that it’s interesting to see a full season has passed before any true exploration of some of the most iconic aspects of the franchise.  “Amok Time”, like the opening episode of the first season, was not the first episode produced of the season but it was the first episode aired and Season 2 of Star Trek is all the better for putting this best foot forward.  This is the episode where significant time is devoted to exploring Vulcan culture, now that a full season has passed and the writers have clearly established Vulcans as logical and emotionless, Spock being our only example in the show thus far but he has been given several subtle emotional moments (and a few not so subtle) to emphasize his human heritage.  “Amok Time” is an episode of two halves, the first half taking place on the Enterprise as Spock behaves rather oddly, resigning himself to his quarters and lashing out at all those who try to understand him.  This self-isolation is an interesting theme due to subtext weaved throughout the episode by Theodore Sturgeon placing Spock as an outsider.  Leonard Nimoy’s performance throughout the entire episode is fascinating and goes through several shifts, but it is actually Majel Barrett as Christine Chapel whose subtle delivery of care and unrequited attraction to Spock that sells these things.  While Chapel is a character whose last piece of development was “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” and she is essentially just acting as the nurse with a crush here, Barrett’s performance is something that shines through for the character.

 

The episode reveals that Vulcan reproduction and sexual dynamics are on a cycle where Vulcans enter a stage of pon farr where they must mate or die, Spock manipulating the Enterprise towards Vulcan so he can be with his betrothed T’Pring, played by Arlene Martel.  This mating as stated here is a process specifically male and specifically heterosexual, though this exclusionary framework is undercut by a subtext in the back half of Spock not being happy with his choice of mate.  Nimoy spends much of the back half of the episode without dialogue, but there is this sense that this arranged marriage is only occurring because it is what is expected due to Vulcan culture and their alien biological imperatives.  The Vulcan’s are also matriarchal, T’Pau played by Celia Lovsky being our insight into the hierarchy on Vulcan in perhaps the strongest written female character Star Trek has had to offer in this series.  Especially important as T’Pau does not conform to traditional female gender roles due to the alien nature of the Vulcans and Lovsky portrays the power as coming from T’Pau’s independence.  T’Pring demands a trial by combat, called a kal-if-fee, between Spock and a champion she chooses to break the engagement, not allowing herself into an unhappy union.  Martel’s performance is incredibly reserved, not showing visible emotion but internal conflict as she is as much a victim here being forced into a relationship.  Spock specifically brings Kirk and McCoy down to the planet Vulcan, being his closest friends, for the support through the ceremony with full intent to leave T’Pring once the ceremony is over.  The fight to the death heightens Spock’s emotions and ends with the apparent death of Kirk, Kirk stepping in voluntarily though without knowledge of the nature of the challenge.  This primal fight is enough to break the pon farr for Spock, using rage and violence through to circumvent the need for mating, the emotions of killing another and losing that connection.

 

Kirk of course isn’t dead, DeForest Kelley as McCoy getting to be an almost trickster figure, injecting Kirk with a drug to make him appear dead on the fly, something Spock is unaware of, leading to Spock’s most emotional sequence.  Spock is resigned to locking himself up and resigning completely at the loss of Kirk, the clear subtext being of love between them, though for obvious reasons this is never stated outright.  Nimoy’s emotional outburst of joy upon Kirk being revealed to be alive is also perhaps his best moment as Spock thus far, taking a single line and letting it all out through an exclamation of love.  Sturgeon’s script is full of this subtext of love and it’s translated to screen by Joseph Pevney who directs the silent action sequences incredibly well. Vulcan is portrayed as very red, signifying its heat which adds to the sexual subtext of the episode of the flames of passion driving Vulcans every seven years.  Pevney also executes several genuinely impressive camera movements and zooms for a late 1960s television show, imbuing the episode with flair and care throughout.  The Vulcan salute and accompanied by the phrase “live long and prosper” is introduced here as another piece of Vulcan culture and finally as a lesser note Walter Koenig appears as Chekov for the first time, though this is a footnote in the first half of the episode.

 

Overall, “Amok Time” is a perfect episode to open the second season of Star Trek.  Focusing in on Spock allows Leonard Nimoy one of his best performances and unlike the several rewrites like on “Shore Leave”, Theodore Sturgeon’s script is allowed to be presented with Sturgeon’s ideas and some very modern subtext allowed to pass through without having to be censored.  This is clearly an episode that is integral in the development of fanfiction as a concept and it is utterly brilliant at exploring an alien culture while also for once taking the focus of the episode entirely off Captain Kirk who is in the audience surrogate position for once.  10/10.

New Earth by: Russell T. Davies and directed by: James Hawes

 

“New Earth” stars David Tennant as the Doctor and Billie Piper as Rose Tyler with Camille Coduri as Jackie Tyler, Noel Clarke as Mickey Smith, Zoe Wanamaker as Cassandra, Sean Gallagher as Chip, Dona Croll as Matron Casp, Lucy Robinson as Frau Clovis, Adjoa Andoh as Sister Jatt, and Anna Hope as Novice Hame.  It was written by: Russell T. Davies and directed by: James Hawes with Helen Raynor as Script Editor, Phil Collinson as Producer, and Russell T. Davies and Julie Gardner as Executive Producers.  It was originally broadcast on Saturday 15 April 2006 on BBC One.

 

The second series of the revival of Doctor Who is one that behind the scenes was almost destined to be a mess.  The addition of the Christmas special meant that Russell T. Davies’ original idea for the opening episode would become “The Christmas Invasion” and be aired four months before the rest of the series so it almost had to be a standalone to introduce the world to the Tenth Doctor proper.  It was placed in the first production block with three other episodes, however production problems on the third forced the block to be split into two and brought Russell T. Davies’ focus to writing “Tooth and Claw”, the second episode of the series.  The development of the series saw Davies offer script positions to returning writers Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss as well as new writers Toby Whithouse, Tom MacRae, and Matt Jones, with Matthew Graham joining later in the series when another script fell through.  Adding an extra episode to wrangle also led Davies to attempt only five scripts to be penned by himself, however like with “Boom Town”, the original writer for the episode that became “Tooth and Claw” fell through adding another script for Davies.  The first scene of the series was written especially for whatever would become the first episode, meaning that this episode opens with a pre-credits sequence that doesn’t actually have a strong hook other than the Doctor declaring they will be traveling further then they ever have been which is essentially a trailer line.  It’s also how you get Camille Coduri and Noel Clarke as Jackie and Mickey in the episode for barely a minute.  At various points Davies slated “Tooth and Claw” and Steven Moffat’s “The Girl in the Fireplace” as an opener before Jane Tranter requested his “Body Swap” idea for its comedic potential.

 

“Body Swap” came from Davies’ desire to explore the trope and bring back Zoe Wanamaker as Lady Cassandra from “The End of the World”, revealed to have survived due to her brain being rescued and consciousness placed in a slab of skin from her back.  She would then take the body of Rose Tyler during the episode so Wanamaker only needed to be on set for one scene at the end of the episode as she was engaged with the production of Cards at the Table, with Piper playing essentially a dual role.  Davies decided to set the episode on the revival’s first alien planet changing the title to “New Earth” after its setting before production began, and this setting is honestly one of the episode’s many weak points.  While there is a wonderful, if dated, computer generated effects shot of a future city and the production design in the main hospital setting where Cassandra has been hiding out since “The End of the World” does look futuristic, it's a planet that doesn’t feel alien.  Now, this is Doctor Who which has a reputation of filming in quarries and calling it a planet, but throughout the classic series from the first alien planet we see in Skaro, there was an attempt to build alien cultures and worldbuild something to distinct the setting from Earth.  New Earth is basically Earth with more aliens and since the last series and “The Christmas Invasion” took place around Earth through its history, there is great disappointment in its realization.  The immediate post credits exposition with the Doctor and Rose is also our first real glimpse of what it will be like with this TARDIS team actually traveling, and that vibe is a series of romantic dates through time and space.  Now, Tennant and Piper have chemistry, but this is a vibe that just doesn’t work for me personally as I generally prefer the Doctor not to be in a relationship, especially not with his companions.

 

When the plot of “New Earth” actually begins Davies sets up two plots, Rose being almost immediately separated from the Doctor and sent to the basement of the hospital where she is confronted by Cassandra and her slave, Chip played by Sean Gallagher.  Oh, yes, add that to the several murders that Cassandra has committed, she’s also a slaveowner and her slave was grown specifically for the purpose of being a slave and is continually denied life.  Davies’ script never uses the word slave, but pay attention to Chip’s dialogue and you’ll realize that’s exactly what he is.  This will be important for the denouement of the episode whose central theme somehow attempts to be about the rights of those who have life and sentience.  The banter between Cassandra and Rose is genuinely a sequence of sparkling dialogue, Rose attempting to defend herself but Cassandra laying a pretty perfect trap to get her body, it’s probably the best scene of the episode.  Then Cassandra gets Rose’s body and the rest of this plot plays out until the very end of the episode as over the top camp with innuendo and bawdy humor which could work if the rest of the episode is a farce, but it's a body horror story.

 

The cat nurses (and for some reason they are all nurses and not doctors) of the hospital, the Sisters of Plentitude, have grown millions of people in tubes to give every disease known to man, meaning the hospital is secretly harboring beings whose existence is eternal pain and suffering followed by death as the only hope.  The episode does not play this as the horror that it is nor does Davies seem to realize that he has the opportunity to comment on unethical medical research.  He just turns it into a zombie story as the patients get out and start to infect everyone in the hospital which is shot incredibly well by James Hawes, playing up the body horror aspect.  The Doctor here is characterized explicitly in the text as the lonely god who will receive the last message of the Face of Boe and of course is able to save the day, the conclusion of the episode having him cure the creatures and giving them a life.  The scenes with the Face of Boe are genuinely interesting, and the Doctor is characterized very well with the setting being a hospital, Tennant’s performance being one of the few high points despite the lonely god characterization near the end of the episode.  This conclusion is actually hopeful, until Cassandra, still making jokes, jumps into the body of Chip and the Doctor and Rose allow her to take his body so she can die and get a chance at redemption by calling herself beautiful.  Chip is also characterized as only having one desire and that’s serving her mistress, he is a slave, broken to serve only his master.  Cassandra gets to have a redemption, the Doctor and Rose both denying Chip his right to life because it’s what he wants.

 

Overall, “New Earth” is the first truly dire episode of the revival of Doctor Who.  While most people have a tendency to shrug it off as camp and over the top, if prospective viewers give it a rewatch you’ll realize how dark the script actually is and how poorly it treats its characters.  It gives a monster a redemption and grafts a comical farce onto a horror story, but doing it badly.  Billie Piper gets one sequence that’s genuinely amazing and she and Tennant are clearly trying, while the guest cast in prosthetics are all acting their socks off, but this is dire and implies abhorrent things while attempting to defend life in all its forms.  2/10.

The Christmas Invasion by: Jenny T. Colgan

 

The Christmas Invasion was written by Jenny T. Colgan, based on the story of the same name by Russell T. Davies.  It was the 169^th story to be novelized by BBC Books.

 

It’s kind of a shame that I’m doing these novelizations of Russell T. Davies era stories in series broadcast order, as it means I have already experienced two adapted by their original writers which allows this elevation from a standard novelization and expansion of these 45-minute episodes into something genuinely amazing.  Jenny T. Colgan was already an established novelist and storyteller both in and out of the Doctor Who world, having written two full length Doctor Who novels, several short stories and audios, and her own series of young adult romantic comedies.  She is a lifelong Doctor Who fan, and you can tell she is relishing the chance to adapt a story from the man whose era returned her love of the show.  The Christmas Invasion is a Target novelization and I mean that in the absolute best way possible: it takes the 60 minute Christmas special and adapts it to the short novel format wonderfully, but unlike the other two modern novelizations I have covered (perhaps because Colgan didn’t write the original script) there isn’t actually all that much added in terms of plot or characterization.  There is an added prologue and epilogue which are nice, a few moments scattered throughout that add mini scenes including a nice description of the Guinevere space program being stared, and an added adaptation of “Born Again” as a single chapter, but other than that The Christmas Invasion is “The Christmas Invasion”.  It doesn’t take steps to iron out some of the issues of the televised story, or maybe give Harriet Jones more to do, it’s perfectly content to be the story and to be just as enjoyable.  Colgan’s prose is light and breezy, focused on converting the performances and emotions of the characters to prose very well in her added descriptors.  There is an adherence to the script to perhaps too large of a degree, some of the dialogue being very mid-2000s television dialogue.  And of course, the story still has the Doctor out of the action and the uncertainty of where the Tenth Doctor’s characterization could go which was something Colgan perhaps could have added to in a novelization like this.  The chapter titles being all lyrics or titles for Christmas carols was a nice touch to enhance the Christmas atmosphere though.

 

Overall, The Christmas Invasion is a perfectly enjoyable read from an author who knows exactly what she’s doing, though is perhaps a bit too reserved when it comes to converting an hour long script into prose.  It’s an experience that if you enjoy “The Christmas Invasion” as a story on television you are going to enjoy The Christmas Invasion in prose form.  It does make me want to see Colgan let loose with the ability to fully expand an episode and maybe not adhere so closely as she did here, but this is a book that I can happily recommend as a fun time.  7/10.

Operation -- Annihilate! by: Stephen W. Carabatsos and directed by: Herschel Daugherty

 

“Operation – Annihilate!” is written by Stephen W. Carabatsos and is directed by Herschel Daugherty.  It was filmed under production code 29, was the 29^th episode of Star Trek Season 1, and was broadcast on April 13, 1967.

 

The first season of Star Trek was and remains to this day the longest season for a televised iteration of the franchise, clocking in at 29 episodes.  Finishing this journey with this episode feels utterly fascinating as there have been ups and downs, and oddly enough Star Trek Season 1 doesn’t end up sticking the landing.  Now, any episode that would have to follow up an episode like “The City on the Edge of Forever” was always going to struggle at least a little bit, much like the follow ups to “The Corbomite Maneuver”, “Balance of Terror”, and “Space Seed” all had tough acts to follow, but it can be done.  Sometimes you need something weird and utterly off the wall like “Shore Leave” and sometimes you get something like “A Taste of Armageddon” which somehow continues the line of thought of the previous episode, but sometimes you get “Operation – Annihilate!”.  “Operation – Annihilate!” is an episode that on paper has a lot of potential for drama and storytelling, some of which to the episode’s credit is explored.  The central premise of the episode is that some sort of space plague has been making its way through systems and devastating the populations, the Enterprise being called in to investigate, quarantine, and stop it.  The plague seems to be an infectious sort of madness, something that feels in keeping with the fears of the world in 1967, the space race being in full swing and with it the fear of mysterious illnesses from space being prominent in fiction around this time.  Kirk and company find that on the planet Deneva the madness has already taken root and is spreading, infecting Spock whose alien physiology means he can stave off the infection for a period of time.

 

If the episode was just this, it would be great.  Not as good as “The City on the Edge of Forever”, but there is the clear potential to explore themes of the spread of illness and wishing to find a cure.  Again, nothing new for Star Trek, “Miri” already did a space plague much earlier in the season but that episode had major issues that a writer like Carabatsos, who had served as script supervisor earlier in production, could have ironed out into his own interesting tale.  Carabatsos, however, makes a series of very odd choices in guiding the script in a way that feels incredibly out of date, even for a show in the 1960s.  To make the stakes personal, after a pre-credits sequence where a ship from Deneva hurls itself into a star for freedom in a sequence that suffers from Herschel Daugherty’s glacially paced direction though is made up for in its script, it is revealed that Kirk’s brother is stationed on Deneva with his wife and son.  This sets up the episode to have the potential to really explore Kirk’s personal history and backstory much like other episodes have done, though this time going closer than Star Trek has ever gone through his direct siblings.

 

Sam, however, is dead.  His wife is killed shortly after of infection.  Their son is alive, but comatose and infected.  Only Sam’s wife, played by Joan Swift, is given lines, and those are not coherent nor do they establish her as a character.  William Shatner clearly tries to emote and feel something at the death of these characters as Kirk would in this situation, but the script really doesn’t support it.  Shatner is almost directed to have as much knowledge of Samuel Kirk as the audience does, and that’s just he’s Kirk’s brother, a biologist, and is now dead.  Undercutting tension is something “Operation – Annihilate!” does at almost every opportunity, the bulk of the midsection being the investigation into the parasites, revealed to be fleshy, ray like creatures who can fly, and that investigation is quite fun, if a bit dragged out by direction that feels no sense of urgency even though Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, and Majel Barrett are all trying their best.  When the solution is discovered to be light bombarded at the creatures (which is only discovered after radiation does not work which makes the scientist in me cringe since light is radiation), Spock volunteers to have his entire body bombarded to kill the parasite inside of him and it works leaving him blind.  Carabatsos tries to make this even more bittersweet by revealing only a specific wavelength of light so Spock needed to not be blinded.  He then just gets his sight back and the episode ends.  No, we don’t know if Kirk’s nephew survives.

 

Overall, “Operation – Annihilate!” at least has a good potential and the performers are genuinely trying to make proceedings work, but sadly it brings the first season of Star Trek to a close with a genuinely underwhelming tale.  Stephen W. Carabatsos breaks several rules of writing when it comes to characterization and tension building, and while he does succeed with interesting ideas and some scenes scripted to work better, Herschel Daugherty’s languid directorial style just brings everything down to an underwhelming episode.  4/10.

And as this is the end of the first season of Star Trek here are my picks for the Top 5 Worst and Best Episodes of the Season:

Top 5 Worst Episodes:

5. Mudd’s Women

4. The Menagerie: Part II

3. Operation — Annihilate!

2. The Alternative Factor

1. Charlie X

Top 5 Best Episodes:

5. A Taste of Armageddon

4. The Corbomite Maneuver

3. Space Seed

2. The City on the Edge of Forever

1. Balance of Terror

The Christmas Invasion by: Russell T. Davies and directed by: James Hawes

 

“The Christmas Invasion” stars David Tennant as the Doctor and Billie Piper as Rose Tyler with Camille Coduri as Jackie Tyler, Noel Clarke as Mickey Smith, Penelope Wilton as Harriet Jones, and Sean Gilder as the Sycorax Leader.  It was written by: Russell T. Davies and directed by: James Hawes with Helen Raynor as Script Editor, Phil Collinson as Producer, and Russell T. Davies and Julie Gardner as Executive Producers.  It was originally broadcast on Sunday 25 December 2005 on BBC One.

 

There were several hurdles for executive producers Russell T. Davies and Julie Gardner after wrapping production on Series 1 of Doctor Who.  First, Mal Young stepped down as executive producer leaving Davies and Gardner to work along.  Then Christopher Eccleston made the firm decision to leave the role of the Doctor after issues with the production, though this issue would be solved by Davies and Gardner agreeing to cast David Tennant in the role of the Doctor after working with him in Casanova.  The series had not been renewed past “The Parting of the Ways” however so there was a chance that Doctor Who did not continue into the Tenth Doctor’s era.  Luckily a month before the series launched, Jane Tranter informed Davies and Gardner that the BBC were impressed with what they had seen and some of the press materials for the series and commissioned two further series to be aired in 2006 and 2007.  With this renewal also came the final snag for Davies and Gardner, an expansion of the episode count from 13 episodes to 14 with added Christmas specials to be aired ahead of the second and third series, meaning a rescheduling of the production schedule.  This altered Davies’ plans for the series overall by allocating one episode of each Series 2 and 3 to be written as a Doctor light episode so two episodes could be made at once, for Series 2 that would be the final episode in production, only written after the airing of the 2005 Christmas Special.

 

“The Christmas Invasion” as a story was one that was also written quickly.  Davies had several ideas for where a potential second series of Doctor Who in development upon receiving the news of the Christmas special being added to the schedule and knowing that this would be the first full episode to feature David Tennant as the Doctor and by necessity the first episode to be filmed, Davies’ script focuses specifically on exploring the aftermath of the regeneration through the entire runtime.  The decision was made to make the Tenth Doctor’s first adventure structured like a classic alien invasion storyline, set at Christmas with Jackie and Mickey as major supporting characters as the TARDIS crashes at the Powell Estate in the pre-credits sequence.  The invasion itself, while hinted at early on, doesn’t occur until the halfway point of the episode with the spaceship of the Sycorax hanging over London and 1/3 of the Earth’s population poised on the tops of very tall buildings to jump to their deaths.  This as a plot point is incredibly dark, and while the climax of the episode reveals there is no danger, it’s this element that really strikes the emotional chord with the viewer.  As the Doctor is out of action for much of the episode, this amount of danger really brings home how Rose is out of her element despite her best efforts.  Davies’ script through the first half of the episode is fascinating as it has Rose unsure of what to make of the new Doctor.  Written without the addition of “Born Again” as setup, the uncertainty is perhaps laid on a little too thick, but there are moments where Rose realizes that while he is different he is still the Doctor.  This adds to the ending where the Doctor makes his actual grand entrance in the episode, waking up after a good cup of tea to reset his synapses and fighting the Sycorax leader in single combat.  David Tennant’s performance when he isn’t asleep is actually quite good, despite Davies’ script not always having a clear direction on where the Tenth Doctor is going to go as a character.  Some of that is genuinely because in the episode the Doctor hasn’t had time to really do anything to establish himself but it also is a sign of the episode’s script being rushed.

 

The Sycorax as a threat are also interesting, their design and the makeup work done by Anwen Davies, Steve Smith, and Moira Thomson is great.  Davies gives them a warlike race as an almost false bravado as the tactics they use to scare planets into selling half their conquests into slavery are tactics that scientifically don’t work but play on the fear of what they deem lesser species see when their technology is employed.  This means the first danger the Tenth Doctor faces is a race of bullies, using intimidation tactics to get what they want.  The actual fight sequence is perhaps the one place where James Hawes’ direction is let down, edited with several quick cuts and feeling quite a bit disjointed, only its beginning and ending, where the Tenth Doctor establishes himself as giving no second chances, really stand out as finished sequences.  The sequences on the Sycorax ship also feel like a marked shift in tone as the first half of the episode takes a more campy approach to the idea of an invasion occurring at Christmas, there are killer robot Santas using brass instruments of death and a spinning Christmas tree of death which are both so over the top yet so entertaining, Piper, Noel Clarke, and Camille Coduri selling the scenes perfectly.  The Christmas elements are perhaps the best utilized of many of the Christmas specials that will come after “The Christmas Invasion” as there is real character drama throughout with Penelope Wilton returning as Harriet Jones, now Prime Minister, doing her best to keep the UK and the world calm.  Her arc ends here, making the terrible decision to shoot down the Sycorax ship as it is leaving, something the Doctor uses to bring about her downfall.  It's a chilling note to resolve the episode on and the way Wilton sells these final scenes are perfect.

 

Overall, “The Christmas Invasion” serves as a great reintroduction to Doctor Who despite being a script written on rather short notice and as an added episode to an already hectic production schedule.  While sidelining the Doctor doesn’t work as well as it could and the climax becomes a bit too messy, it’s still a great example of the longevity of the show in selling David Tennant as the Doctor, the first regeneration to successfully occur without any large production troubles since 1984’s The Caves of Androzani.  “The Christmas Invasion” then becomes a very important episode for the show’s future as it balances drama, horror, and oddly camp fun for a very enjoyable experience.  7/10.