doctor who – I'm Not Doctor Who

Merry Christmas to one and all! I hope you had a thoroughly pleasant and restful day — or, depending on your timezone, are still currently having a thoroughly pleasant and restful day. Andie and I spend ours over at her mother’s house, and it was a fairly traditional family Christmas all round — get up late (I must confess that this wouldn’t fly in my parents’ house, since my mother insists we all get up early to open presents; out of all of us, she has always been the one who has actually managed to hold on to Christmas enthusiasm), eat food, eat more food, open presents, sit back and ponder how much food has been eaten, maybe pick at a bit more food (particularly that which has been acquired as a present, such as those boxes of chocolates and Danish butter cookies that you only ever seem to see around Christmas time) and then gradually sink in to perusing your presents in more detail, perhaps accompanied by some appropriately rubbish Christmas TV.

Neither Andie nor I watch much TV generally these days: we typically watch the things we want to watch at our own pace via on-demand services. As such, it was actually a semi-interesting experience to catch some real-time TV, and watch some of the sort of things that we’d probably never choose to watch deliberately.

First up was Professor Branestawm, a name which I recognised from my youth, but which I couldn’t remember a whole lot about. If I remember correctly, the character was the star of a series of children’s books, but the actual content of them hadn’t stuck in my mind all that much. As I watched the new BBC adaptation, starring Harry Hill in the title role (and incorporating numerous other respected names like Charlie Higson, David Mitchell and numerous others), it came back to me, though; they were some enjoyably silly and distinctively British stories that retain their “children’s story” feel even to this day (though inevitably, someone had to go and find the “social outsider” angle of the wacky professor problematic, joyless arses that modern entertainment journos are). The adaptation itself was a lot of fun: the cast was excellent, Hill played the title role with aplomb, and the whole thing didn’t outstay its welcome, in fact arguably being over a little too quickly if anything.

Next up, today we caught an animated movie called Gnomeo and Juliet. It will probably not surprise you to discover that this was a retelling of Romeo and Juliet through the eyes of some garden gnomes, with the dispute between the Montagues and Capulets replaced by a bitter feud between the red- and blue-hatted gnomes in the gardens of two neighbours who disliked one another very much. It was an enjoyably silly affair with some nice animation and an excellent voice cast — including the masterful casting of Jason Statham as Tybalt — though I was slightly disappointed that they didn’t have the guts to go through with the full tragic ending. At least it was lampshaded by a pleasingly witty statue of William Shakespeare, voiced wonderfully by the inimitable Patrick Stewart. And I guess you can’t really have what is clearly a children’s film ending with suicide. Probably a bad message to send to the young ‘uns and all that.

Finally, we watched the Doctor Who Christmas special today. I haven’t watched Doctor Who for ages; I got into it a little bit in the Christopher Ecclestone/David Tennant years and watched a few of the Matt Smith episodes — primarily for the vision of loveliness that is Karen Gillan, I must admit — but I haven’t been following it closely for several years now, and haven’t seen any of the Peter Capaldi episodes to date.

The episode in question was an enjoyable affair, albeit somewhat convoluted and totally ripping off Inception with the whole “dream within a dream” deal. It stood quite nicely by itself — I didn’t feel like I needed to know much of the background about the characters, so even not having seen any Capaldi episodes I was able to feel like I could enjoy it on its own merits. I’m not sure it particularly made me want to jump on board the Doctor Who hype train — Capaldi’s script in particular was a bit flat and uninteresting, with little of the Doctor’s usual personality about it, and the tension between him and the female assistant character was entirely too predictable — but I don’t feel like it wasted an hour of my life or anything; it was decent enough Christmas evening television and an appropriate enough accompaniment to biscuits and prawn rings.

Anyway. That’s that. I hope you all had a suitably acceptable haul of presents to enjoy — I got a copy of the board game Betrayal at the House on the Hill, which I’m extremely excited to give a go soon, along with a bunch of other nice goodies.

And lots of food. I think we’re good for snacks for the next six months or so.

Anyway. On that note, a merry Christmas to you, and to all a good night, or something.

Back to after midnight again. Whoops. Oh well.

Watched the new Doctor Who today, a day late, but fortunately it was repeated on the normally-awful BBC3. It’s a cracking start to the new series, and enough to make me want to watch again. Jane and I missed most of the last series as we kind of got out of the habit of watching it, but this first episode was good enough for Jane to want to watch it twice.

Matt Smith, despite everyone’s initial misgivings, makes an excellent new Doctor with just the right amount of quirkiness to hearken back to previous iterations of the hero and still make the role his own. Early scenes see him clearly channeling Tennant, which hardcore fans will tell you is actually just how it should be, as the new incarnation of the Doctor adjusts to his new body and life. By the end of the episode, he’s found his own individual style, though, a style rich with sarcastic one-liners and slightly supercilious grins. But never obnoxious. It’s a fine line between “wacky” and “irritating” and Smith treads it well.

New assistant Amy Pond, too, despite driving Daily Mail readers wild with either indignation or sexual frustration – they don’t seem to be able to make their mind up either way – is a fine addition to the lineup of companions. She’s feisty and sassy and, yes, has lovely legs. Plus, much as everyone is brought up to believe that redheads are somehow subhuman, you can’t possibly tell me that this (right) isn’t a fine example of spectacularly hot womanhood?

All right. I have a mild redhead “thing”. But it’s under control and I can quit any time I want.

Uhh, what was I talking about again?

Oh, right, Doctor Who. Yes, this first episode was great fun, alternating between moments of comedy (with the already oft-quoted “You’re Scottish – fry something” clearly the best line in the show) and ridiculously overblown “OMG THE WURLDZ IZ ENDINGZ” drama. There was a great soundtrack, too, giving this first episode a suitably epic feel despite being largely based in an idealised version of quaint English country life.

The seeds have been sown for this season’s plot arc, too, with something about “Silence will fall” clearly being an omen of what is to come. Plus the trailer totally spoiled that there will be Daleks, Cybermen, vampires and Spitfires involved at some point. Oh, and the Spitfires are in space. YES!

Approval on Twitter and around the web has been almost universally positive so far. The Daily Mail article linked to above has been the only negative comment I have seen so far, citing unnamed “message boards” and “forums” as its source, so perhaps take it with a pinch of salt – or more likely a handful, this being the Mail and all.

I’ll certainly be interested to see where the series goes from here. And no, not just because of the delectable Amy Pond. It looks like thoroughly silly and epic fun, which is just what Doctor Who should be. If you haven’t seen it yet, the first episode is still available on BBC iPlayer at the time of writing. So what are you waiting for?

Tag: doctor who

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