Tony’s counting down
The structure of Series 1
of reinvigorated Doctor Who is a masterpiece in its own right. While Rose
is the welcome mat to a whole new world of fans, focusing on the companion’s
point of view, a threat to the Earth and in this case, the human and family
relationships that surround the companion, bringing the worlds of soap and
sci-fi together, it’s actually The End Of The End that takes the concept
and shows the kind of thing it can do.
In some senses, it’s a
love letter to the past, like The Curse Of Peladon with an early
21st century effects budget and a look that blows most of Classic
Who off the screen. It’s a mad collection of random aliens, trapped in an
enclosed environment for a particular purpose, and then things start to go
wrong. People start to die.
It’s got everything you
could want from a Peladon homage – gruff aliens, silently menacing aliens,
snarly-looking scary aliens who turn out to be squeaky little darlings. It has
blue-skinned space station staff, CGI metal spiders which when they tiptoed
across our screens in 2005 looked amazing compared to what people expected
of Doctor Who effects. There are walking sexy tree-people, for goodness
sake. But as the mystery unfolds of who’s killing off the visitors to the day
the sun explodes – an almost-nod to Douglas Adams’ ideas of The Restaurant
At The End Of The Universe – it becomes clear that the last of the
genetically ‘pure’ humans is the source of trouble. Take that, people who think
‘the humans are the bad guys’ is an invention of the Chris Chibnall era.
As much as it’s about the
love letter to The Curse Of Peladon though, it’s also an in-the-moment
adventure with the separation of the Doctor and his new friend, an almost-test
of Rose’s ability to accept and live in the wider universe, and it’s a test she
takes in her stride. Yes, there are moments when her mind is blown by quite how
alien the aliens are, but it’s in Rose’s ability to talk to the staff, to
show an actual interest in people’s lives, and in her rejection of the
mindset of the villain, the creed of species purity, that we see what this Rose
Tyler girl is going to bring to our universe that can earn her the right to a
wider passport in time and space alongside the best of the Doctor’s previous
companions. Yes, the sun might be about to blow up, but Rose is interested in
the people who go mostly ignored. Yes, the aliens might be alien, but that
doesn’t mean they’re lesser than her, and she’ll stand up against notions of
racial purity, species-purity and people with a sense of even inherent class
entitlement, in favour of equality for all. In Rose, we see her dealing
with the absolute broadening of her world on Earth. But in The End Of The
World, Rose Tyler deals with the absolutely broadened palette of
experiences the universe has to offer, and stands up for the values of her time
and place, which are some of the best humanity had to offer at the time.
The End Of The World, as well as doing all that, stands as a
statement of dramatic and comedic intent by Russell T Davies – you’re not
allowed to bring weapons or religion on board the station. There’s relatively
modern pop music used as incidental music alongside the score. There’s a
heavyweight acting talent in the main villain role, as Zoe Wanamaker gives
voice to Cassandra, the stretch of skin linked to a brain in a jar who
nevertheless has ideas of her own purity. There’s social satire in the fact
that she’s been tweaked and tucked until all that’s left of her is a strip of
tight skin and a vicious brain. There’s some solid companion-peril, allowing
the Doctor to rescue his new friend, but there’s also a big doohickey that the
Doctor has to face – the big fans of spinny doom – and a connection with a
random person who ultimately pays with their life for the Doctor’s necessary
actions. And, more than ever in Classic Who, there’s a quiet moment, a conversation
between the Doctor and his friend, where they ask him questions and don’t take
no for an answer. Where Rose has that moment and gifts us the ‘Turn of
the Earth’ speech, The End Of The World gives us the first real inkling
of the Time War, and the first real idea that while this is absolutely the same
Doctor we knew in the Classic era, he’s seen things, and possibly done things
since he was the Byronic man in the Bill Hickock costume that have changed him,
shown him things he never wanted to see.
And while the sun
explodes, everybody’s more engaged in the drama of Cassandra and her plot than
with the stellar shenanigans – the human conflict foregrounded over the space
opera.
By the time we reach the
end of The End Of The World, Rose has proved herself in time and space,
we’ve been introduced to the first New Who statement of intent, we’ve been
treated to a visual feast that knocks the whole ‘shaky sets and dodgy CGI’
mythology of Who out of the window, those who know have seen The Curse Of
Peladon reinvigorated in the 21st century, those who are new
have seen a shedload of aliens, had their expectations subverted in the Moxx of
Balhoon, met heroic tree-people in Jabe and the Forest of Cheem – kiss my
Groot, Marvel Universe – and overall, enjoyed a murder mystery in space with
none of the cliched problems people used to talk about with Doctor Who. The
End Of The World takes new Doctor Who out into the universe, and for the
most part, nails both the soundness and believability of the visuals for a 21st
century science fiction show and the Russell T Davies mentality and aesthetic
of what that wider universe looks like, sounds like and thinks like. It proves
that Rose was no fluke, that the show could stretch itself into
futuristic settings, fix many of the budget-based problems of future ages, and
compete in the early 21st century market for slick sci-fi, while
still possessing that barmy touch of comfortable kitsch that is forever Doctor
Who. It consolidated the casually curious into solid viewers by throwing down
the challenge to itself, and meeting it spectacularly.
No comments:
Post a Comment