Classic Who: The Massacre

Another proper historical story - and it feels very traditional now after the more subversive approach of The Myth Makers. That's not to say it isn't good, though. We're sort of back with John Lucarotti (of Marco Polo and The Aztecs fame), and this script offers the same kind of weighty moral debates, and the same grappling with the issue of whether the TARDIS crew can or cannot affect history, as his earlier efforts. But apparently it was largely re-written by Donald Tosh, so it is not 'pure' Lucarotti - a pity, because it would have been interesting to see more directly how a writer of season 1-style historical stories had worked in the context of the changes which had occurred at production level by season 3. I can only assume the re-writing scenario means that the answer to that is 'not very well'.

( The initial set-up )

( Bleakness and moral balance )

( The Doctor's double )

( Non-intervention and the resultant dilemma )

( Steven )

( Dodo )

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New Who 5.1: The Eleventh Hour

Knowing I didn't really have time to review this properly, I tried live-blogging it. I don't really want to make that a regular habit, as it meant that I missed quite a lot of what was going on on screen while I was writing down the last thing I'd noticed. But it was nice to have a go at it.

( The results are under here )

In short, definitely looks promising. Moffat is referring to the past, but also positioning himself as having his own new take on the format. And Matt Smith seems just right. It's hard to judge how the adventures will pan out from this - like any opening story, it's really just about introducing the characters. But we've made a decent start.

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Classic Who: The Ark

Wow, a story with moving pictures! After so many still reconstructions, I was genuinely quite confused by that at the start of this story. It didn't help that it opened with a still shot of a lizard on a jungle floor, which resulted in me sitting there squinting closely at it thinking: "Is that thing moving? Eh, surely it can't be? But - whoa! It is!" I've just, in fact, had a very similar experience this morning thanks to The Gunfighters' opening shot of an empty street in a frontier town, followed by the sudden entrance of three guys on horseback. It's almost like the directors of these stories knew that the ones in between would be reduced to still images at some point in the future...

( The overall writing and structure )

( Dodo )

( Colonialism and racism )

( Dodo's cold )

( Television screens as meta-reference )

( The development of the Doctor and resonances in future stories )

( The TARDIS as an intelligent navigator )

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