Oh, I thought that fucking ruled. Well pleased with everything about that episode except the new titles and title music. The RTD theme never felt quite as alien with its soaring orchestras as the old music did with its pulsing synth work, which really made the thing sound like it was pushing in from another dimension. This seems to have gone further away from that still. That's literally all I have issue with though.
Phwoar! That Steven Moffat's a canny one, eh? Not only was that a pitch perfect introduction to a new Doctor and a new way of doing things, tonally it all just hits the spot for me. How do you please long term fans, Tennant lovers, clear the slate, homage the past and attract new youngsters all at the same time? Well, like that, I think. I say that without doubt, it's the best series opener of any of the series since the program was revived. Previous RTD season openers always left me a bit cold (probably with the exception of Smith and Jones) and they generally got a lot stronger after that. This one jumps in as a clear statement of intent, gets on about its business with pace, and pulls you along after it.
Matt Smith might be my new favourite Doctor. Time will tell, but he really hit the ground running and just effortlessly inhabits that role in a way that makes me a bit jealous. More so than Tennant, who was big and theatrical and embellished (and perfect for the show he was in). Smith just seems to bring something a little more real to all the unreality. Like this is an impossible man who's actually possible.
Moffat's said that Doctor Who at its best makes children out of everyone when you're watching it and he's dead fucking right. One of the things that he does brilliantly is recenter your awareness around all the little things that you wonder and imagine about as a kid, and show you the worlds of potential behind them. That fantastic library that you imagine in your head that grown-ups tell you doesn't exist actually does, and The Doctor is in there. And he needs your help. Those statues you see all about town that never move... as soon as you look away, they're craning their heads towards you with malicious intent. That crack in the wall of your bedroom isn't just a crack, it's the breach point of something big, sinister and unknowable. That door that's always been there, that plays just out of your sight and disappears the moment you turn around. That hides the most terrible secret ever. One that'd devour you if you ever become more aware of it than you already are. It's not the kids that are wrong about this stuff. It's the adults that are too scared to entertain it any more.
And when you're stuck in this place you don't want to be in, where nobody takes your "imagination" seriously and all you've got to look forward to is growing up into that same space of denial and boredom and greyness, The Doctor crashes into your garden when its way past your bedtime and you can't be sure if you're dreaming or not. He's big like an adult, but weird like a kid. He's got a swimming pool in a box. He's loud and gangly and he likes fish-fingers and custard and he doesn't make very much sense at all, but he knows that that crack in your wall is the most serious thing ever, and that you're as smart as you think you are because you won't disregard it, no matter what anyone else says.
Then he's gone. And what he leaves you with is proof that all the maddest stuff in the universe is actually true, and that in fact it's madder than you ever thought was possible. Only he's not around to back you up. And in fact, he's just made that whole problem a million times worse. Now it's not just that you've got a wild imagination and that everybody's telling you you need to grow up. Now, clinging on to those impossible ideas, things you've seen but nobody else has, could actually mean that you're insane.
I loved all that unseen history to Amy Pond and The Raggedy Doctor. I'm really looking forward to finding out more about her because there's so much potential in there and Moffat's the kind of writer who could really come good on it.
He's an incredibly gifted writer. Probably the best on British TV at the moment imho. He pens brilliant, funny, zippy dialogue and creates characters with real, affecting emotional lives to say it all. He has an eye for how to make something very creepy out of something very simple. He writes fantastically structured plots that fold into and out of themselves as they open up, going from incomprehensible to blindingly clever on a plot turn. But really, it's this kind of stuff that sells him for me. Just that kind of wondrous emotional honesty. One that says that logic is great, and can explain almost anything, but the minute you try to use it to explain something away is the minute it becomes absolutely useless.
Now here's a very odd personal diversion that may go some way to explaining my enthusiasm for this program.....
Moffat repeats a beat from a previous story, The Girl In The Fireplace, and it's one that I liked very much first time around, and I'm glad to see it back and properly expanded on. There's a personal reason I reacted so strongly to that episode. About a day previous to that I had just had what is still one if the most intensely personal and affecting dreams I've ever dreamt. Long story short, I fell in love with an incredible angelic woman. We were seperated and reunited many times over a long period and the thing finished with us running hand-in-hand to try and escape the end of the dream fading away all around us. Ran into the Tardis parked in my Primary Six classroom and started it up, only to have it fade out, taking her with it and waking me up. I didn't really move for about an hour after waking, devastated, trying to hold onto it all. But the next day, as it was all fading and I was rationalising the whole thing, I watched that episode, which mirrored, scarily, much of what I'd just been through, even including personal dream-imagery. Suffice to say it hit me like a bit of a kick to the gut. Weird thing is, Steven Moffat episodes since then always seem to contain elements of that dream. Recently I've been training myself in lucid dreaming to look back into that (I taught myself how to fly last month and I'm fucking getting me a Tardis) as she gave me the means to get back to her, only to see the same theme crop back up again in the same TV show.
Now regardless of any of that actually having happened. That feeling is what this show engenders in me anyway. That magical potential. And Moffat, the man now in charge of the show, sees that Doctor Who isn't just a telly program. If that's all it was then it wouldn't still be around after all these years. Doctor Who is one of the greatest characters in British (WORLD!) fiction, because his Tardis is a tool for getting into the head and reigniting imagination.
And he's great company because of it. |
