So, Peter Capaldi’s first series has been and gone. To be honest, I approached Series 8 with a mixture of anticipation and dread. While I was excited by that Peter Capaldi was going to be playing the Doctor, Series 7 had been fairly bland and I was worried that Steven Moffat had run out of ideas. Things looked positive at the start of the year, when Peter Capaldi got a decent costume, and the production seemed to be moving on with very little problems, but then the first five episodes leaked, making the build up to Deep Breath seem less exciting. Finally, the first episode arrived and I was relieved when not only did Series 8 turn out to be not bad, it's one of the best series we've had a in a while.
When Matt Smith became the Doctor we had no idea what he would bring to the role whereas when Peter Capaldi was cast, we all knew he could be a good Doctor and all this series really did was to confirm those expectations. The trailers suggested that he would be darker Doctor, but it turned out that he’s not so much “dark” as pragmatic. He does what is necessary to save people, regardless of sentiment. Moments of emotion do get through, such as his genuine surprise that Clara is walking out on him in Kill the Moon and the moment he tells Clara that her betrayal would not end their friendship. There are moments where he’s as gawky as Matt Smith, but with less frills it feels different. He may have had a costume similar to Pertwee's, but he’s not copying that performance. His little victory dance in Flatline was hilarious, but it’s not the primary feature of the Doctor. In some ways he reminds me of the Timothy Dalton version of James Bond. A little less audience friendly, but nonetheless extremely compelling to watch.
The Doctor's not the only character to have had an overhaul this series. Now that she’s free from the impossible girl story, Clara has been given far more depth than she was in Series 7. We actually got to see her being a control freak rather than just having her tell us she is. It's also been good to see her in a proper workplace, with fellow teachers and students. It makes her feel like she's got a real life and job in a way that her role as an au pair didn't. The biggest problem with the impossible girl story was always that Clara could never react to it. This time we get to see her losing her temper at the Doctor's actions in Kill the Moon as well as her stunned response to the death of Danny in a car crash. This has allowed us to see lots of different facets to Jenna's character It’s up in the air at the moment whether Jenna is actually staying beyond the Christmas Special, but I hope she does.
By coincidence or design, Moffat’s episodes have often matched events happening in the real world. Matt Smith was playing football in the Lodger while World Cup 2010 was airing. Voting and elections were mentioned in the Beast Below before the General election. This particular series tackled the theme of soldiery, which was fitting for the anniversary year of the First world War. Moffat handled the issues tastefully, dealing with the good and bad involved in armed conflict through Danny Pink. Danny is a good man who helped to dig wells, but was also responsible for the death of a child civilian. The whole of the human race is converted into an army of Cybermen, but this army is turned to good purposes to protect the human race rather than to attack.
The exploration of soldiery ties in with the fact that this series has dealt with darker themes than Doctor Who has for a while. We’ve had the idea of corpses being cremated alive, an ex-soldier meeting the child he killed and a man being shot with his arm falling off. After the "everybody lives" Matt Smith fairy tale years, this change of tone is more than welcome. We seem to be pushing into the same edgy territory that was there in the Hinchcliffe era and I love it. This has inevitably led to complaints by some viewers, but I've always felt that drama should push you emotionally. Even the central characters are more morally ambiguous. Clara lies to her boyfriend, Danny occasionally becomes a bit controlling and the Doctor wants everyone to love him. This change of tone might have come about simply to emphasise the difference between Doctors but I wonder if it’s partly to do with the different point that Moffat is in his life now. Steven Moffat always used to let his kids read the scripts but now that they are teenagers themselves. This might be silly psychoanalysis. Either way, it’s resulted in a brilliant series, so I’m not complaining.When Matt Smith became the Doctor we had no idea what he would bring to the role whereas when Peter Capaldi was cast, we all knew he could be a good Doctor and all this series really did was to confirm those expectations. The trailers suggested that he would be darker Doctor, but it turned out that he’s not so much “dark” as pragmatic. He does what is necessary to save people, regardless of sentiment. Moments of emotion do get through, such as his genuine surprise that Clara is walking out on him in Kill the Moon and the moment he tells Clara that her betrayal would not end their friendship. There are moments where he’s as gawky as Matt Smith, but with less frills it feels different. He may have had a costume similar to Pertwee's, but he’s not copying that performance. His little victory dance in Flatline was hilarious, but it’s not the primary feature of the Doctor. In some ways he reminds me of the Timothy Dalton version of James Bond. A little less audience friendly, but nonetheless extremely compelling to watch.
The Doctor's not the only character to have had an overhaul this series. Now that she’s free from the impossible girl story, Clara has been given far more depth than she was in Series 7. We actually got to see her being a control freak rather than just having her tell us she is. It's also been good to see her in a proper workplace, with fellow teachers and students. It makes her feel like she's got a real life and job in a way that her role as an au pair didn't. The biggest problem with the impossible girl story was always that Clara could never react to it. This time we get to see her losing her temper at the Doctor's actions in Kill the Moon as well as her stunned response to the death of Danny in a car crash. This has allowed us to see lots of different facets to Jenna's character It’s up in the air at the moment whether Jenna is actually staying beyond the Christmas Special, but I hope she does.
By coincidence or design, Moffat’s episodes have often matched events happening in the real world. Matt Smith was playing football in the Lodger while World Cup 2010 was airing. Voting and elections were mentioned in the Beast Below before the General election. This particular series tackled the theme of soldiery, which was fitting for the anniversary year of the First world War. Moffat handled the issues tastefully, dealing with the good and bad involved in armed conflict through Danny Pink. Danny is a good man who helped to dig wells, but was also responsible for the death of a child civilian. The whole of the human race is converted into an army of Cybermen, but this army is turned to good purposes to protect the human race rather than to attack.
The story arc of Missy and the Nethersphere wasn’t quite as well handled. It was great to finally have a female incarnation of the Master, and Michelle Gomez gave a brilliant performance. Nevertheless, her plan to give the Doctor an army didn’t really make sense, nor did her reason for keeping Clara and the Doctor together. At least we got some progress on the Gallifrey situation as we now know that at least one Time Lord has managed to get back into this universe. It will be interesting to see whether Gallifrey will return during Steven Moffat’s tensure or whether that will be left to some hypothetical future show runner.
There are still some plot threads that have been left dangling that may or may not get answered in the future. We were never given the reason why Peter Capaldi's Doctor like Caecilius or John Frobisher, despite the hints of one in Deep Breath. There's also the question of who was behind Gus in Mummy on the Orient Express, and if Danny is really dead what will happen to Orson Pink? Has he been erased from history? Sometimes Moffat deals with these things, sometimes he doesn’t, and in the case of who blew up the Tardis in Series Five, he left it until Matt Smith's last adventure. So who knows if or when we’ll get answers to these things.
The production has appeared to progress smoothly with everyone confident in what they're doing. The standard of direction has been consistent, with the odd exception of the Bus with the Doctor Who poster appearing in In the Forest of the Night . The most likely reason for this improvement is having old hands like Brian Minchin and Peter Bennett around. Steven Moffat has never had the chance to build a consistent production team, with other producers coming or going regularly. Having the old guard back is helpful and hopefully they will stay on for next year.
A lot of little touches have helped. The decision to remake the fan-made title sequence was a good one, and the new theme music is not popular with everyone but I personally quite like it. Murray Gold has continued to produce excellent music this series. Even the Tardis interior has been improved this year with warmer lighting and more props to make it feel like a lived in space.
Overall, the best episode of this year was Listen. It was a very small scale story that managed to say something about the human response to fear. My least favourite story was Robots of Sherwood, which felt less ambitious than the stories around it.
Next up, we've got the Doctor and Clara meeting Santa Claus, so where will Series 9 take us after that? Things will inevitably be changed around as the producers decide what worked and what didn't. Given that Steven Moffat got rid of the Paradigm Daleks in light of the viewer responses, I can imagine that he might also try and lighten the tone of the next series. Peter Capaldi’s Doctor may also mellow in response to some of the reception. Personally, I think it would be a shame if this happened as I enjoyed those elements. Still, things move around.
Anyway, what we have here is a series that has been bolder and more interesting than Series 7. It seems that the arrival of a great new Doctor has galvanised the production team. Peter Capaldi’s Doctor has been given a great start. It was definitely worth the wait and we've got a run in with Santa Claus to look forward to in a months time. Let's hope it's just as good as the rest of this years run.
No comments:
Post a Comment