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.