|
In View - The Month in Television |
|
MAY 1996
HE'S BACK, AND IT'S A WASTE OF TIME...
by Adrian E.C. Petford
After all the hype, rumours, debate and hope, the wait is finally over. At last we have seen the new Doctor Who telemovie and can judge for ourselves whether it was all worth it. As someone who viewed the prospect of a US-made version of this most British of institutions with hostility from the outset, I had found myself gradually won over by the snippets of information that were released once the production was actually up and running. We were promised a Doctor Who redefined for a nineties audience, yet faithful to the qualities that made the original series a success for decades, and, even better, a version that would draw on the established continuity of old as well as strike out in its own direction. After all, with a British lead actor, writer, director and executive producer as well as ultimate script approval from the BBC, what could possibly go wrong?
The answer was: almost everything. I was able to view the film before its BBCtv screening, and gave up after only twenty minutes. After steeling myself once again for the horrors to come on 27th May, I made a second attempt and managed to sit through the whole thing with a mixture of sadness and increasing dread at each new awful turning of the pseudo-plot. Perhaps the most unsettling aspect was that it was, predictably, all so heavily Americanised. Now that is not to decry American TV per se by any means; after all, series such as The X Files, Hill Street Blues, Max Headroom, Homicide: Life on the Street, Twin Peaks and NYPD Blue represent some of the best television programmes ever made, but generally formats do not translate well across the Atlantic in either direction. Look at our dreadful, disastrous version of Married... with Children for an example of the reverse. US television cannot generally copy our own production style successfully and neither can we theirs. Despite all the propaganda about this version being an "international" Doctor Who, the film turned out to be as American as Uncle Sam or Mom's apple pie, and sadly owed much more to the standards set by Glen A. Larson than those of either Steven Bochco or Chris Carter. We were "treated" to a silly and unnecessary car chase, action scenes including a sub-Indiana Jones style abseil down the side of a building, irrelevant sub-plots and a frenzied pace which precluded room for effective characterisation, or anything else of any real substance.
The film started with The Master being exterminated on Skaro by the Daleks and went rapidly downhill from there. But they obviously must know their Who mythology, I hear you cry, to include such major continuity references? The production team evidently tried to open with something recognisable to keep the fans, or even the BBC, happy and this should be applauded. Such a shame really that the planet Skaro was destroyed in an earlier Sylvester McCoy story and this film very obviously begins in the closing part of his era. Whoops... Equally ridiculous were the hyped-up, hysterical Dalek voices (thankfully, the creatures themselves remained unseen) that sounded like Skaro's finest mutants had been tripping on acid. One of my colleagues suggested this could have been done in this way to avoid the attentions of Terry Nation's copyright lawyers, but, since I can't possibly believe that the Daleks would ever bother to put anyone on trial in the first place, there probably wouldn't have been much of a case! Either way, it was unnecessary, clumsily handled and doubtless alienated much of the audience even before the opening credits had whooshed their way down the spinning time vortex.
Even worse continuity howlers were to come. Now I can accept that The Master is a disembodied entity seeking to take over a new host body (after all, that happened in the original series at least once), but why was he presented here as a bizarre snake-like creature that literally had to infest a victim's body by passing down the throat? I always thought he merged his mind with a new host body that then caused a degree of physical change. And are we to presume from this, that The Doctor is really a snake? What implications would this have on his new-found passion for the opposite sex? Quite a few I imagine, considering the relative dearth of female extra-terrestrial snake creatures in pre-millennial San Francisco. Returning to The Master, portraying his takeover of Bruce, the ambulance driver, as a mental possession would have been much more convincing, as well as remaining faithful to the original series. Later on, we discovered that The Doctor is himself half-human! Strange that in twenty-six years of television travels he never thought of mentioning it before. Quite apart from the fact that there are many snippets of evidence from the original series that make such a revelation completely impossible. I suspect the production team may have been watching too much Star Trek. Not all extra-terrestrial scientists have to be half-human, you know. In fact, a lot of the mystery of The Doctor's character in the original version was due to his obvious "alien-ness" (in every possible respect) when compared to our own species.
There was some attempt to follow the continuity of old, but these references mostly came over as rather blatant and unsubtle in-jokes for the fans, rather than anything more substantial. This was a shame, as some of them were quite clever and effective. The sonic screwdriver made a miraculous reappearance after its destruction fourteen years ago in "The Visitation", as did the 500 Year Diary, and the coincidental use of the name "John Smith" for The Doctor (recalling the alias he used on Earth while assigned to the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce) was also a nice touch. Other more subtle elements included the retention of the TARDIS dematerialisation effect and the Cloister Bell, both of which sounded exactly as they were in the original series.
The simplistic plot distilled a lot of the ingredients of the original series, which was often a fundamental battle between good and evil, but ultimately showed that a movie-length format is not enough to adequately cover all the ground of a concept as sophisticated as that of Doctor Who. The action developed at too fast a pace; the plot was contrived and riddled with holes, not to mention ending with a monumental cop-out that left many of these threads still dangling aimlessly. Eric Roberts' ultra-melodramatic portrayal of The Master had me wondering why I'd ever criticised Anthony Ainley's awful version of the character in the original series. Roberts' atrocious performance was an insult to the memory of Roger Delgado, whose fine, powerful and intense portrayal of the original Master made for a fine Moriarty-type foil to The Doctor's Sherlock Holmes, still being rightfully acclaimed even today as one of the most sinister villains ever seen on the small screen. Even at its worst in the later years of the original series, The Master's character still showed considerable depth, that just cannot and should not be reduced to that of a stock high-camp villain.
I'm glad to report that amidst all this mishandling, there were a few things they got right. Sylvester McCoy's cameo appearance was the most surprising; after the pantomime-esque excesses of his tenure in the original series, it was welcome to see his Doctor at least regain some dignity in the twilight of his incarnation. The character had quite the feel of an elder statesman about it, and the fact he looked (obviously) ten years older tended to explain the quieter, more sombre Doctor we saw here. It was exactly as if we were rejoining The Doctor's travels after years apart, and McCoy acquitted himself very well. His appearance here does tend to lend credibility to the view held by some fans that McCoy could have accomplished much better things had he not been held back by the shackles of the comedic, shambolic style imposed by the then producer throughout his run in the original series.
After a somewhat unsatisfactory regeneration sequence, despite the effective allusion to Frankenstein bringing his monster back to life, Paul McGann took over and gave us a very engaging and highly entertaining version of The Doctor. Despite a few slightly misjudged moments, he held the attention throughout and showed much promise in the role... that is, of course, if his adventures are ever likely to continue, which I can't believe on the strength of this pilot film. It serves as evidence of McGann's skill that he was able to define his own version of the Time Lord at all, given that there was no obvious characterisation coming out of the script. Silly in-jokes and eccentric reactions are just not a strong enough foundation on which to build such a multi-faceted character as The Doctor, but McGann did amazingly well with what little he had. An actor of his calibre deserves far better than this drivel. Daphne Ashbrook also gave us a refreshing alternative to the tiresome screaming female companions of yesteryear, and even the infamous kiss worked reasonably well in the context it was used.
The most notable and outstanding aspect of the entire production was the design, which clearly showed an incredible amount of thought and time had been lavished upon it. Perhaps this was the only aspect of the whole film to genuinely take your breath away. The original TARDIS console room, designed back in 1963, was revolutionary for its time as in those days, nothing even remotely like it had ever been seen before. Now, with all science fiction television replete with gleaming control rooms, it was a brilliantly inspired idea to redesign the TARDIS with Jules Verne-style technology, complete with vintage levers, dials and bizarre scientific instruments. An especially effective touch was the use of a battered television monitor to show the ship's destination. The mass of wiring and cumbersome power cables hanging from the ceiling stressed the fact that this Type 40 TARDIS was hardly cutting edge technology. The rest of the console room was littered with artefacts collected by The Doctor during his centuries of travelling, ranging from antiques and kitsch to a relatively modern record player, which suggested the character's eccentric nature well. The closing scenes, which saw the ceiling of the console room transform itself into an immense panoramic screen showing the ship's journey was also an interesting and well-executed idea. This TARDIS gave the scenes set within its grandiose precincts tremendous atmosphere and sheer class, which thankfully provided some diversion from all the other substandard aspects of the production. The overall ambience of the film was also aided considerably by the outstanding direction (from veteran British television director Geoffrey Sax) and state of the art special effects work, both of which made it seem much better than it really deserved.
The re-use of the Jon Pertwee era Doctor Who logo at least means the dreadful comic strip symbol we've had to endure since Sylvester McCoy's time has at least now been dispensed with. The famous theme tune, in a newly orchestrated version, was also more acceptable than the later efforts of the original series, although I am at something at a loss as to why Ron Grainer, the original composer, did not receive a credit.
In conclusion, it would be fair to say that Doctor Who could not be made today as it was in its heyday; it should acknowledge the past, but move forward in a new direction. But in doing so, it must not lose the qualities that make it what it is, such as the whimsical humour, quirky characters, the sense of wonder at each new adventure, and strong, plot-driven stories with a beginning, a middle and an end. This film hit some of the right targets in its attempt to update, and to a certain extent re-invent, the style for the nineties, but overall, the good points were far outweighed by the negative ones. The American fast-paced TV movie format does not allow for the sedate plot development and rounding out of the characters that has distinguished Doctor Who from its more one-dimensional science fiction peers in the past. There were also far too many major liberties taken with fundamental aspects of the concept for it to be properly acceptable as a true continuation of the original series; it would have been a far more successful approach to adhere to the basics of the established continuity and handle them correctly than merely to rely on obvious in-jokes to win over the fans. It was evident that the producers had probably interpreted the series as a solid format let down only by a low budget and slightly tacky special effects. Thus we had glossy effects galore, but at the expense of plot, characterisation and everything else that Doctor Who should really be about. The various attempts to echo classic genre films such as The Terminator and the Indiana Jones series also suggested a relative lack of originality and ultimately failed to elevate the telefilm much beyond the level of a shallow, superficial runaround. In the highly unlikely event of a continuation, or even another revival, they are going to have to do a lot better than this to stand any chance of their Doctor Who being acceptable to the general viewing public, let alone the notoriously fickle hard-core fan base. I can't possibly believe that in future years people will remember this version as anything other than a pale travesty of a once-great sci-fi classic. It promised much, and sadly delivered little.
All I can say after witnessing this effort is thank heavens for Dennis Potter. My tortured mind quickly found solace only minutes after the pseudo-Doctor Who film reached its merciful end with the repeat of the first part of Cold Lazarus. This is a British production that boasts the sort of special effects, set design and science-fiction trappings that the original Doctor Who series and its ilk could only ever dream about, which just goes to prove that we can make such high-budget genre programmes in this country if the willingness is there on the part of television bosses. The final televised work of Dennis Potter probably couldn't be more prestigious as a television event, and this has been given even greater importance by the fact that Cold Lazarus and its prequel, Karaoke, are the first major instance of a full co-production between Channel Four and the BBC. It also confirms that, unlike the American Doctor Who film, science fiction can still be realised with tremendous style and panache on a grandiose scale without losing either characterisation or plot.
In the twenty-fourth century, a group of scientists are trying to re-activate the inanimate head of Daniel Feeld - the main character from Karaoke - whose body has remained cryogenically frozen in storage since his death in the 1990s. The goal of the project is to push forward scientific knowledge on the workings of the brain and the nature of human memories, but the media vampires of this entertainment-obsessed society are already closing in to exploit the more commercial possibilities...
Although still in its early stages, he richness of the characters, settings, concept and dialogue are well up to Potter's usual unequalled standard and the strong continuity with Karaoke gives us a satisfying dual-plotline as well, as Daniel Feeld's memories - from both before and after the events of the earlier serial - are laid bare for all to see.
I should also probably mention the return of Revelations, the "ecclesiastical soap opera" now showing on Sky One and in selected ITV regions, but unfortunately after the Doctor Who film I have already suffered enough embarrassing, substandard pap for one month! Serve to say that it's just as entertaining (for all the wrong reasons) as before, and I'll muse further on the subject at a later date...
Copyright © Adrian E.C. Petford 1996. All Rights Reserved.
| Kaleidoscope - The Classic Television Organisation |
| [ Email Kaleidoscope ] [ Kaleidoscope Home Page ] [ Television Reviews ] |