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Andrew Rilstone had some interesting things to say about Partners in Crime:
So: let's cast aside my fan goggles and try to watch 'Partners in Crime', not as part of a thing called Doctor Who but as 45 minutes of TV intended to fill the gap between The Weakest Link and I'd Do Anything.
I think that what the straight viewer would see would be a situation comedy. The long drawn out opening gag, in which one character is looking for the other, but keeps missing him, despite the fact that he's only ten feet away, is the kind of thing you'd get in cleverly timed seaside farces or Carry On films. The main characters are broadly drawn comic 'types': there's the working class girl with the mockney accent, day dreaming about the one that got away; her nagging mother; her bonkers, dishevelled grandfather and the sinister company director who's part Anne Robinson and part bondage queen, explicitly compared with Supernanny. (Women in powerful jobs are both sinister and funny.) Only the science journalist, (this week's Highest Ranking Sympathetic Supporting Character) is played straight. The Doctor himself, of course, is hardly even a character, more a grinning collection of comic mannerisms: Basil Fawlty rather than Inspector Morse.
The opening scenes of 'Rose' said to the viewer: "These characters behave like people in a soap opera: please take them seriously". The opening scenes of 'Partners in Crime' said "These characters behave like people in a sit-com: please don't".
Etcetera. Good analysis even if you don't entirely agree with it and find yourself saying that the first ep was meant to be comedy.
Now, there's something more worrying that Rilstone picks up on, to do with Russel's apparent penchant for breaking important rules and being ironic and postmodern. I think he has a point. I have disliked these parts of the new series. In fact, more generally, I dislike most things which are labelled as post-modern simply because the dog is never a real dog, it's a symbol or a joke and you aren't meant to take it seriously or ask how glossy is its fur (only an idiot, living in a cave where there was no Media, would do that). It's a bit like bad Victorian poetry or those translations of classical literature done during the renaissance where you weren't supposed to enjoy the story but appreciate which characters represetned which virtues, which Shakespeare thankfully kicked against. All this may be controversial.
Anyway, the good thing is, that the Romans one I've just watched now on the BBC iplayer took the ideas in it seriously. |
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