Doctor Who, Planet of the Dead (BBC 1, 11th April 2009)

I am a great fan of Doctor Who and look forward to each episode. Unfortunately, the special ‘Planet of the Dead’ was not, in my view, one of the best episodes of the TV programme.

With any Doctor Who episode, viewers are confronted with the layers of narratives surrounding the production. It is as if the viewer feels that they are being let into the ‘secrets’, but it is more like a publicity campaign constantly keeping Doctor Who in the public eye. For this episode we were told all the details of the red bus. For example, we were supplied with images of Michelle Ryan and David Tennant on the bus and we were privy to the news that the bus had been damaged in transit to Dubai. David Tennant produced a blog and we saw more of the red bus in his blog.

All this was really interesting and certainly kept my attention, but the none of the pre programme stuff really gave any in depth information on the programme itself. They were all, of course – teasers.

I thought the opening of the programme was really strong. It set a tone and aesthetic which I felt if the programme had sustained would have made an excellent episode. The kind of James Bond/Jewell thief cliche could have been developed, but apart from Lady Christina de Souza carting round a bag full of tools and being able to get the diamond and clamps, this aspect wasn’t really developed.

Ok, so the episode moved on and there was the London bus on a rainy evening and maybe things would develop well from this. The idea that the Doctor catches a bus is wonderful, there are so many ways this could be developed and then the bus goes through a wormhole and everything is very disjointed from then on.

The title suggested for me something like Sixth Sense and having a character who had a kind of sixth sense gave the impression that we would really feel surounded by ghosts and not, as it turned out, on a planet which had been invaded by a swarm of insects, or stingrays – I wasn’t sure what.

The bus in the middle of the desert at times looked like a toy bus on the beach. As I knew this was Dubai it felt too much like a London bus in Dubai.

Captain Erisa Magambo is a great character, but UNIT and no Martha or mention of Martha baffled me slightly and I didn’t get the Professor at all.

This is Doctor Who and there were good moments, such as the Doctor’s teeth , but not the bus flying off at the end – why?.

This episode did not explore a concept in the detail and really take an idea forward as other episodes such as ‘Gridlock’ (traffic jams), ‘The Sontaron Strategem‘ (SatNav) or ‘Rise of Cyberman‘ do. As a viewer I could see the possibilities as if the production team had set some really exciting possiblities up, but had then tried to create an episode of a patchwork of unrelated ideas. Normally this would be great, but on this occasion it didn’t work for me.

I am now looking forward to ‘The Waters of Mars’, but maybe staying clear of the pre show publicity and hoping for a classic episode.

Julie RabyLeave a comment

The Writer's Tale

I have just been reading Russell Davies’ The Writer’s Tale. The book is about the conception and filming of Series 4 of Doctor Who. So a very heavy hardback, with lots of delicious photographs of the programme and behind the scenes stuff, as well as snippets of scripts. Written in an epistolatory style, it uses emails and texts instead of letters and is a correspondence between Russell T Davies and a journalist, Ben Cook. As I read I felt like I was following a private conversation, but I am sure nothing was disclosed that I wasn’t meant to know.

Reading the book, made me realise that the marketing strategy for the programme relied so much on withholding and cliff hangers. This technique isn’t just in the episodes themselves but in narrative constructed around the programme, such as the personal narrative working on the programme. Is David Tennant doing another series or not. I found it enormously enjoyable, both for the writing and the beautiful images. Reading and viewing was strangely and satisfyingly voyeuristic.

It was attracted to the fragmented style of the book. I moved from email to text, looked at images which weren’t directly always related to what was written on the page. It made me think that writing and reading is a changing experience with new technology. I was also thinking, that at home, I hardly use Word anymore, because there are so many other ways to write – this blog for example.

As I write, I’m watching a repeat of episode 1 of series 4 on Sky + and I can now read the programme in different ways because I have read Davies’s book. I know, for example, why the reporter is called Penny and where the title, Partners in Crime’ came from. Sarah Lancashire is great, overacting beautifully as the nanny from outer space and Catherine Tate’s Donna is just spot on, as the Doctor’s companion who isn’t going to fall in love with him in episode 2.

Davies, Russell T. (2008) The Writer’s Tale London: BBC Books
Doctor Who Series 4.1

Julie Raby1 Comment