Sunday, May 08, 2005
"Doctor Who" - 7 down, 6 to go
With last night's 'The Long Game', we've now reached the halfway point in Christopher Eccleston's tenure as the Doctor. From now on, he's got fewer episodes left than we've seen him in.
To be honest, I'm not that disappointed that he's going. While probably the best *actor* to play the Doctor since Troughton, his performance hasn't been as good as I'd expected - too much grinning for the camera for a start. Eccleston's repeated assertion that "Who" is a kids' show seems to be part of the problem - it's as if he looked at his CV, thought that he'd been playing too many dour northerners and thought a year as the Doctor would allow him to tick the "children's", "sci-fi" and "comedy" boxes to impress future directors. His decision to only play the part for a year for fear of "typecasting" is quite honestly bollocks, as a two or even three year stint as the Doctor wouldn't have harmed his career. Getting in an actor who *wants* to play the part and who knows what he's getting himself into, is almost certainly a positive development.
However, even putting Eccleston to one side, I can't help but feel disappointed by the season so far.
Worryingly, many of the problems seem to be with Russell T Davis' episodes and since he's writing the majority of the episodes (8 out of 13 this year and 6 out of 14 next year if you include the Xmas special), that's more than a casual concern.
So far, none of RTD's episodes have reached the highs of 'The Unquiet Dead' or 'Dalek', which wouldn't be a problem if he'd delivered some solid support to Mark Gatiss and Robert Shearman's episodes. Instead, we've had a half-decent opener in 'Rose', which did its job and the enjoyable if plot-thin 'The End of the World' and three poor to average episodes: 'Aliens of London', 'World War Three' and 'The Long Game'.
Equally worrying are some recurring failings, which may or may not be wholly Davies fault. However, as both lead writer and exec producer he's got to take some flak for the inconsistent characterisation of the Doctor, giving the Doctor a 'catchphrase' ("fantastic!" - err, no it isn't) and the obligatory sexual reference to Rose. It's also to be hoped that people such as Murray Gold are being used because they're the beest people for the job and not simply RTD's mates (although since the music has been pretty disappointing, that's debatable).
That Davies is scaling back his number of episodes next season is a good thing, but 6 out of 14 is still too high for me. The series has had a fairly easy ride this year - tons of press coverage, goodwill from the audience and (once Ant & Dec finished) some lacklustre competition on ITV1. Next year things might not be so forgiving. (It's also noticeable that the viewers who've deserted ITV1 since "Celebrity Wrestling" began haven't simply switched over to "Doctor Who").
"Doctor Who" might be back, but I just wish it was hitting more of my buttons than its missing.
With last night's 'The Long Game', we've now reached the halfway point in Christopher Eccleston's tenure as the Doctor. From now on, he's got fewer episodes left than we've seen him in.
To be honest, I'm not that disappointed that he's going. While probably the best *actor* to play the Doctor since Troughton, his performance hasn't been as good as I'd expected - too much grinning for the camera for a start. Eccleston's repeated assertion that "Who" is a kids' show seems to be part of the problem - it's as if he looked at his CV, thought that he'd been playing too many dour northerners and thought a year as the Doctor would allow him to tick the "children's", "sci-fi" and "comedy" boxes to impress future directors. His decision to only play the part for a year for fear of "typecasting" is quite honestly bollocks, as a two or even three year stint as the Doctor wouldn't have harmed his career. Getting in an actor who *wants* to play the part and who knows what he's getting himself into, is almost certainly a positive development.
However, even putting Eccleston to one side, I can't help but feel disappointed by the season so far.
Worryingly, many of the problems seem to be with Russell T Davis' episodes and since he's writing the majority of the episodes (8 out of 13 this year and 6 out of 14 next year if you include the Xmas special), that's more than a casual concern.
So far, none of RTD's episodes have reached the highs of 'The Unquiet Dead' or 'Dalek', which wouldn't be a problem if he'd delivered some solid support to Mark Gatiss and Robert Shearman's episodes. Instead, we've had a half-decent opener in 'Rose', which did its job and the enjoyable if plot-thin 'The End of the World' and three poor to average episodes: 'Aliens of London', 'World War Three' and 'The Long Game'.
Equally worrying are some recurring failings, which may or may not be wholly Davies fault. However, as both lead writer and exec producer he's got to take some flak for the inconsistent characterisation of the Doctor, giving the Doctor a 'catchphrase' ("fantastic!" - err, no it isn't) and the obligatory sexual reference to Rose. It's also to be hoped that people such as Murray Gold are being used because they're the beest people for the job and not simply RTD's mates (although since the music has been pretty disappointing, that's debatable).
That Davies is scaling back his number of episodes next season is a good thing, but 6 out of 14 is still too high for me. The series has had a fairly easy ride this year - tons of press coverage, goodwill from the audience and (once Ant & Dec finished) some lacklustre competition on ITV1. Next year things might not be so forgiving. (It's also noticeable that the viewers who've deserted ITV1 since "Celebrity Wrestling" began haven't simply switched over to "Doctor Who").
"Doctor Who" might be back, but I just wish it was hitting more of my buttons than its missing.
