Chris Jordan continues his look at the best of Doctor Who as the series transitions between its original and modern incarnations with the Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Doctors.
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| "Thanks for house-sitting while I'm visiting the Shire." |
This installment in
our Best of Doctor Who series spans an era of great change for
the show. The behind-the-scenes tension that made the Sixth Doctor
era so turbulent and uneven may have ended the show's golden age and
brought it perilously close to jumping the shark, but the beauty of
Doctor Who is that it can always reinvent itself. Much like
the Doctor himself, if the series is at risk of death, it can
regenerate. And regenerate it did: this article will cover three
reinventions of the show, which took place between the later years of
the original series and the debut of the new one. While these
reinventions had varying degrees of success in terms of actually
keeping Doctor Who on the air, all of them were absolutely
successful in that they gave us three excellent, very unique eras.
Seventh Doctor
Sylvester McCoy: The Curse of Fenric (Season 26, 1989)
When
the Sixth Doctor era self-destructed at the end of season 23, Doctor
Who
was left flailing and directionless. The show had no real leader for
its writing staff as season 24 commenced production: no replacement
had yet been found for Eric Saward, and while producer John
Nathan-Turner tried to cover that job too, he just wasn't up for the
challenge, either in ability or creativity. JNT had no clear vision
about where the show should go, his concept for the Seventh Doctor
completely clashed with Sylvester McCoy's acting style and ideas for
the role, and the new Doctor was introduced in possibly the worst
story arc that the show had ever done (Time
and the Rani –
just don't).
By the time a new head writer/script editor, Andrew Cartmel, was
hired partway through production, there was nothing he could do to
get the misguided season 24 back on track, and it wound up being
Doctor
Who's
weakest. Far from the image of regained control that BBC management
wanted to project, it was an embarrassment that easily could have
signaled the series' immanent demise. Fortunately, it instead served
as just the wake-up call that John Nathan-Turner needed in order to
realize that if he wanted to save Doctor
Who,
he had to totally hand the creative reins of season 25 over to Andrew
Cartmel, effectively making him the primary (if not sole) showrunner.
This was exactly what the series needed (and had needed for the last
three years): a bold, creative, risk-taking newcomer with a strong
vision for how to reinvent the series, and the passion to pull it
off. And he pulled it off immediately, resulting in possibly the
fastest and most dramatic turnaround in television history. The
season 25 premiere, Remembrance
of the Daleks,
took audiences by complete surprise by delivering not only the best
Doctor
Who
story arc in years, but great television by any standards of the
time. It was fantastic, and signaled that this was a whole new,
drastically improved show. The Seventh Doctor was a completely
different character: gone was the miscast clown, replaced by a dark
and mysterious (if still very funny) manipulator who is much more
than meets the eye. He likewise had a much better companion in the
edgy, feminist, and totally badass punk teenager Ace. The special
effects were better (you could actually call them... good!), and the
writing hinted at a larger and more complex mythos at work in the
background. Doctor
Who
had totally reinvented itself, literally from one episode to the
next. By the end of Remembrance
of the Daleks,
the show's critical reputation had been significantly restored, and
as the season continued it was clear that Andrew Cartmel had not only
brought it back from the brink, but into a second golden age. It
never again became the widely-viewed popular hit that it once was,
but it at least grew back into a beloved cult classic with a
passionate following. His era would give us several more cult
favorites like The
Happiness Patrol,
The
Greatest Show in the Galaxy,
and Ghost
Light;
in fact, all but maybe one of his latter two seasons' story arcs are
very well-liked. But the greatest masterpiece of this era came
towards the end of its final season...
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| "Look at this, Doctor - it looks like an ominously- foreshadowing metaphor for our current situation!" |
The
Curse of Fenric was the
second-to-last story arc of the entire original series, and in a way
it really is the perfect culmination for Doctor Who,
demonstrating very powerfully that the show was ending on a high
note. These last two seasons had done something very ambitious, which
the show had only done a small handful of times previously: it built
a larger ongoing story arc, all about the development of its two
central characters. Seasons 25 and 26 are about how The Doctor has
some dangerous secrets, and is playing a role in a large and ancient
conflict bigger than the show itself. The seasons are also about
Ace's growth as a person, as she faces her inner demons and goes from
a troubled teenager to a self-confident hero. Both of these plot
threads enjoy some big payoffs in The Curse of Fenric.
The story takes The Doctor and Ace to a British military base in
World War II, where a scientist is working on a Turing-esque computer
to translate German codes, and an unbalanced general is trying to
copy the Nazi's strategy of harnessing occult powers. Both plans soon
have the base under siege as Russian operatives come to steal the
machine, and the occult research awakens an ancient and evil force
lying dormant beneath the sea. The Doctor's ancient knowledge and
Ace's budding heroism will both be put to the test in a thriller that
feels like an unlikely combination of Robert Ludlum and H. P.
Lovecraft.
There's
a lot going on in The Curse of Fenric; an almost insane amount
of plot threads that very easily could have unraveled into a confused
mess, but instead weave together to form a fascinatingly multilayered
story. The Lovecraftian aspects of the tale work extremely well, and
the blending of occult mythology into a paranoid World War II plot is
pleasantly reminiscent of the backstory of Hellboy. As if
that's not enough, Ian Briggs' script adds in some more really
interesting and inspired twists as the episodes go along. Adding to
the density of the mystery is the Seventh Doctor himself, more
secretive than ever. He plays his cards even closer to his chest than
usual, and often keeps the audience as well as Ace in the dark where
his plans are concerned. As in much of the Cartmel/McCoy era, this
storytelling choice successfully adds a renewed element of surprise
and uncertainty to the character, despite the fact that at this point
we've known him for almost thirty years' worth of television. This
mysterious side of The Doctor is what Sylvester McCoy does best,
using a sense of humor to mask a darkness and unpredictability
underneath.
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| "The power of the Soviet Union compels you!" |
Narratively,
The Curse of Fenric is an undeniable win. If there is a flaw
to be found in the story arc, it lies in the visuals. While it does
make nicely atmospheric use of its locations, the limitations of
shooting on video outdoors are often obvious, and the
low-budget-80s-TV visual effects notably contrast with the ambitious
mythological narrative. The creature effects are particularly uneven:
the story's pale, long-fingernailed vampires have a creepy Salem's
Lot quality, and the Lovecraftian Ancient One looks great, but
Fenric's barnacle-covered sea-dwelling foot soldiers are a very mixed
bag, and some of them look like little more than extras in Halloween
costumes. But all of these flaws are things that should be easily
forgiven by anyone sitting down to watch an episode of 1980s genre
TV; that's just the nature of the low-budget beast, and suspension of
disbelief is a prerequisite. None of these things are flaws of the
story itself; this genuinely is the best possible four episodes that
the production team could have made, and the low budget is more of a
fact of life than a real fault. This is an excellent case of
storytelling ambition overcoming technical and financial limitations
to deliver something greater than it can really afford.
There
is one other thing that makes The Curse of Fenric very unusual
among Doctor Who story arcs: it exists in three different
cuts. While it is very good in any form, each cut gets progressively
better, so you should try to see one of the superior versions. The
most common version – the one you'll generally find on streaming
platforms – is the original four-episode cut that aired on TV in
1989; but while that is the version that first made Fenric a
beloved classic, it is cut by about twelve minutes from the
director's intended version. Some of the cuts were for content deemed
too violent for prime-time TV, but most of them were due to time
constraints: as mentioned earlier, The Curse of Fenric crams a
whole lot of story into four episodes, and all four ran over length
and had to be cut down to fit the time-slot. The VHS release of the
story arc is an extended version – call it a producer's cut –
with six more minutes of footage restored; still not truly uncut, but
a definite improvement in terms of pacing and story development. The
two-disc DVD release finally restores The Curse of Fenric to
its true director's cut: all twelve minutes of missing footage are
returned, and the whole thing is re-edited into movie form to restore
the plot's intended structure, which didn't quite fit into 25-minute
chunks. The director's cut also adds some revamped modern special
effects, to improve upon some of the original's more budget-starved
visuals. This version is absolutely the one to watch, but since the
DVD is out of print in North America, the extended VHS is a pretty
solid alternative if you're looking to save some money.
Whichever
version you are able to find, though, The Curse of Fenric is
one of the greatest moments of the Seventh Doctor era, and possibly
one of the finest story arcs in all of Doctor Who. It is a
perfect showcase of just how good the final two seasons of the show
were, and a perfect argument for it being a second golden age of the
series. Unfortunately, the quality of these two Andrew Cartmel-lead
seasons were not enough to keep the show alive. While its critical
reputation and legacy among fans were successfully restored, the
casual viewers who had been pushed away by the turmoil and flaws of
the Sixth Doctor era never came back, and at the end of season 26
Doctor Who was canceled due to low viewing figures. At the
very least, Cartmel and McCoy ensured that the series went out on a
high note; and while the actual series finale, Survival, is
likewise quite good, The Curse of Fenric is the highest note
of all.
Eighth
Doctor Paul McGann: Shada: The Animated Miniseries (Web-series,
2003)
(non-animated
alternate pick: Doctor Who: The Movie, 1996)
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| And you thought David Tennant was the first hot Doctor! |
This
is a bit of an unconventional choice; but then again, it reflects a
most unusual era. The Eighth Doctor era took several different forms
in several different mediums, and kept Doctor Who alive with
(mostly) great creativity and critical acclaim throughout the second
half of the 1990s and beginning of the 2000s. However, none of its
several forms included a regularly-broadcast TV series. In 1996,
seven years after Doctor Who's cancellation, BBC decided that
the time was right to resurrect the show. They wanted to do a
bigger-budget, visually-impressive, revamped version with a more
modern sensibility, designed to compete internationally with shows
like The X-Files and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and
Voyager. In collaboration with Twentieth Century Fox, they
produced a two-hour movie intended as a pilot for a series re-launch.
The movie introduced the world to the new Eighth Doctor, played by
Paul McGann (Withnail and I, Alien 3). But sadly, the
re-launch was not to be: when the movie was greeted with mixed
reviews, more than a bit of fan backlash, and underperforming
American viewing figures, Fox pulled the plug on plans for the
series, and BBC wasn't in a position to move ahead without them.
It's
a shame, because while the movie is certainly flawed, it has some
very good qualities that could have grown into a great show, and as a
film it is much better than it generally gets credit for. It takes a
lot of heat from fans for a few ill-advised or underbaked plot points
(especially one in particular, which all subsequent Doctor Who
media has wisely forgotten about), and for a truly awful
performance from a very miscast Eric Roberts as The Master. But
despite those significant flaws, it also has a lot of strong points
that deserve to be equally well-remembered. For starters, it looks
great: the bigger budget really shows (particularly in the gorgeous
TARDIS set), to the point that it took a couple years for the new
series to look this impressive again. It is also just an extremely
fun slice of distinctly-90s sci-fi: even in the script's weaker
moments, it is always entertaining. In that regard, it's a much
better pilot for a Doctor Who relaunch than 2005's Rose,
which has got to be one of the worst first episodes of a great series
ever. But by far the best thing about the 1996 Doctor Who movie
is Paul McGann: he is absolutely excellent as The Doctor, and his
wonderful take on the character makes the film a must-see in itself.
A whimsical Victorian romantic with more than a bit of Oscar Wilde
about him, nearly everyone could agree that McGann made a genuinely
great Doctor, even if he was stuck in a sub-par script. His Doctor
was so well-liked, in fact, that even though he only wound up getting
a single televised episode, his era was rescued by other mediums
instead.
It
didn't take long after the announcement of Doctor Who's
re-cancellation for officially-licensed comics and novels to pick up
Number Eight's continuing adventures. But the true re-launch of the
Eighth Doctor era came in 2001, when Paul McGann finally got a chance
to step back into the role, in a full-cast audio series produced by
BBC's audiobook partner company, Big Finish Productions. The audio
series quickly gained great critical acclaim and made McGann's Doctor
an underdog fan-favorite; Doctor Who was back, although not in
the way anyone had expected. The series continues to this day, now
running parallel to the TV show as a sort of ever-growing prequel.
The Eighth Doctor's very best story arcs, not surprisingly, come from
this audio line, and many among them would make great introductions
to his character; for starters, Sword of Orion, The Stones
of Venice, and The Chimes of Midnight from his first two
seasons. But this article is supposed to be about the best episodes
from the TV series, so I must save those for another time (though in
all seriousness, they are highly recommended). Fortunately, in 2003
the success of the Big Finish audio series inspired BBC to give
McGann's Eighth Doctor one more on-screen adventure for the series'
40th anniversary. This came in the form of a six-episode
animated miniseries, released on their new BBCi web-video channel.
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| "Ah, the wonders of animation - Gallifrey certainly never had the budget to look like this on the old series!" |
2003's
Shada is a true present to the fans for a couple reasons: not
only does it finally give us the chance to actually see
another Eighth Doctor story (and a luxuriously long one of six
25-minute episodes, no less), but it also finally realizes one of the
most notoriously tragic missed opportunities of the original series.
Shada was written by the late Hitchhiker's Guide to the
Galaxy author Douglas Adams in 1979 for Fourth Doctor Tom Baker,
but halfway into shooting, a BBC strike canceled the production. The
pieces that they shot were eventually released on video, with Tom
Baker filling in the rest of the story with behind-the-scenes
narration, but enough is missing that it was never possible to
appreciate it as a finished story. Now, with only slight tweaks to
the script to accommodate the change of Doctors, it comes to the
screen fully intact, with Adams' signature style of witty sci-fi in
fine form. The balance of science fiction to comedy is understandably
more restrained than in the Hitchhiker's series, but his
snarky voice, sense of humor, and wild imagination are unmistakable.
He came up with an excellent story, combining a fittingly insane
evil-mastermind-seeking-to-conquer-the-universe plot with a very
interesting look into the lore of The Doctor's home planet,
Gallifrey. The script adapts to the early-2000s more gracefully than
one might think, though since this is a time-travel series, our
heroes conveniently journey back to 1979 to make it
period-appropriate.
What
is most pleasantly surprising is how at home Paul McGann's Eighth
Doctor feels in the script. While the dialogue was (occasional tweaks
aside) written for Tom Baker, McGann really makes it his own, and
fits it all to his Doctor's unique personality; the whimsical
Victorian dreamer, rather than Baker's snarky madman. Thanks to his
approach to the material, and his excellent-as-ever performance,
Adams' lines genuinely sound like the same Eighth Doctor from the
movie and the Big Finish audio series, not that Doctor speaking his
predecessor's words. The other two principle leads remain the same as
in the 1979 version: Lalla Ward as The Doctor's fellow Time Lord,
Romana, and John Leeson as everyone's favorite tin dog, K9. An added
prologue reframes the story as a reunion for the old friends, and the
two returning co-stars have excellent chemistry with the new Doctor.
Between the welcome comeback from these two fan-favorite companions,
the long-awaited return of the Eighth Doctor to the screen, and the
thrill of seeing Douglas Adams' script fully realized at last, Shada
definitely feels like an appropriately celebratory event for the
40th anniversary of Doctor Who.
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| "We're time-travelling back to the early-2000s, when Flash animation looked really impressive despite the technical limitations! Come on, Fhqwhgads!" |
But
that said, it's not perfect. The biggest thing holding Shada back
from true greatness is the inherent limitations of the medium BBC
chose for the series: early-2000s flash animation for the web. The
animation is, unsurprisingly, very, very limited. The style is much
more like a motion-comic, and if you've seen the motion-comic
releases of Watchmen or Buffy Season Eight you pretty
much know what to expect: illustrated characters with very limited
motion in front of largely static backgrounds, and zero mouth
movement during dialogue. They clearly tried really hard to push the
medium of early flash animation as far as they could, and you've got
to give them credit for trying to break new ground, but they
attempted this web series a bit before the technology was really
ready. On the bright side, however, the art design is quite cool, in
a minimalist, heavily-lined comic-illustration style, and the
sprawling environments are particularly impressive. Having the visual
representation of McGann's Eighth Doctor adds a whole extra dimension
to the usual audio-serial experience we know him from, and the
expressiveness of his voice-acting more than makes up for the limited
movement of his animated avatar. Keep in mind the historical context
of when and how it was released, and it's pretty easy to get pasts
its flaws and enjoy its high-quality storytelling.
Nonetheless,
the limited animation won't be for everyone, which is why I included
the 1996 movie as an alternate recommended story, either for those
who just can't get into Shada's art style, or for those who
want to see McGann's Doctor in person before they see him as a
cartoon. The unconventional nature of the Eighth Doctor era makes it
a very odd one to get into. Your choices are to start with a TV movie
that looks great but has significant narrative flaws, a web-series
that is narratively great but has significant visual flaws, or the
excellent audio series that is the best all-around, but doesn't offer
a visual introduction to the character. I would argue that Shada
may be the best option of the three, but more than with most eras
it comes down very much to personal taste. Whichever way you go,
though, the Eighth Doctor era is great, and offers a whole lot of
wonderfully innovative, medium-crossing content that makes it very
worth getting into. Doctor Who may have been off the air in
the late-'90s and early-2000s, but it was certainly in good hands.
Ninth
Doctor Christopher Eccleston: The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances
(New series 1, 2005)
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| "Why do you look so upset, Doctor?" "It's another one of those internet trolls who won't shut up about the damn farting aliens." |
After much
anticipation and build-up, 2005 finally saw the return of Doctor
Who as a full-time television series. Fans had been waiting with
nervous excitement to see what this new take on the series would be
like: with a big-name television auteur – Queer as Folk's
Russell T. Davies – behind the scenes, and a big-name character
actor – Christopher Eccleston – in the title role, things looked
promising. But then again, some fans still felt burned by the 1996
movie, and remained skeptical. At the very least it was a good sign
that, like the movie, this new series was being treated as a direct
continuation of all that came before, and not a reboot. Then, the
first episode finally aired... and was greeted largely with dismayed
ambivalence or disappointment. Although the first season did not air
in America right away, I lived close enough to the Canadian border
(in Detroit) that I could watch it over rabbit-ears on CBC, and I
distinctly remember thinking “what... this is what we waited
for?” That first episode simply was not good; easily weaker than
the 1996 movie. But we stuck around, knowing that plenty of great
shows had bad early episodes, and hoping that it would improve. And
it did: episode two was pretty good, episode three was very good,
episodes four and five were bewilderingly misjudged... and then
episode six was absolutely amazing. It was as if new Doctor Who
hadn't known quite what sort of show it should be during those
first few episodes, and then it suddenly figured it out, and knew
exactly what to do. As soon as the Ninth Doctor came
face-to-face with that Dalek, it was totally clear that Doctor Who
was back, with a vengeance. From that point forward, the first
season was great. Christopher Eccleston made an excellent Doctor:
darker and more brooding than any we had seen, but still with that
eccentric sense of humor. Billie Piper's Rose Tyler quickly grew into
an excellent supporting lead, and the two had great chemistry as a
TARDIS team. And in the background of the season was a fascinating
new mythology for the series, involving the then-mysterious Time War.
As soon as the show figured out its identity and brought its script
quality up to par, these pieces all fell into place.
Then, later in the
season, we got new Doctor Who's first true masterpiece: a
moody, atmospheric, and downright creepy two-part story arc set in
the midst of World War II. The hauntingly-titled The Empty Child
introduced us to a ghostly plague sweeping war-torn London, somehow
connected to a dead child in a gas-mask. It also introduced us to a
recurring character who would soon become a fan-favorite: the roguish
Captain Jack Harkness, who came off as something like Doctor Who's
answer to Malcolm Reynolds or Han Solo. Between the excellent
historical sci-fi/horror story and the instantly memorable new
character, it was clear very quickly that we were watching an episode
that would soon rank among the greats like The Curse of Fenric,
The Pyramids of Mars, and The Talons of Weng-Chiang.
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| "We're here for the midnight screening of My Bloody Valentine." |
The script by future
showrunner Steven Moffat is easily the best the show had seen so far,
and still remains one of the best he has ever written. It walks a
fine line of menacing horror with just enough humor to keep things
feeling like Doctor Who without undercutting the
carefully-built mood. It also pulls of something very rare for this
show, by giving us a threat that genuinely remains a mystery in its
supernatural nature for much of the two episodes, following more in a
classic ghost-story template than a sci-fi one. The script also
showcases excellently the great chemistry between Christopher
Eccleston's Ninth Doctor and Billie Piper's Rose. By this point in
the season they have grown into a very strong team, and seeing them
as a unit interacting with the freewheeling Captain Jack is a lot of
fun. This is also one of the first season's most visually strong
story arcs, with the London Blitz setting realized quite well, on
what was still a pretty tight budget. Heavy shadows, clouds of smoke,
harsh beams from search lights, and the entire story being set at
night makes for a great blend of historical accuracy with amped-up
horror atmosphere.
If you are just
getting into Doctor Who, or especially if you are a new-series
fan who jumped in sometime during the David Tennant or Matt Smith
eras and never saw the first series, The Empty Child/The Doctor
Dances is an absolute must-see. The Ninth Doctor era does not get
nearly enough credit. It is by far the least-seen of the new series
in America, as it didn't air in this country during its original run
and the series didn't really start to gain a large following here
until word-of-mouth spread during David Tennant's first season. It
also unfairly has gained a reputation as being a very uneven and not
terribly good season, based solely on the problems of its first five
episodes. Yes, with the exception of the great The Unquiet Dead,
those first five are a deeply flawed challenge to get through. But
from episode six (Dalek) onward, the latter almost two-thirds
of series one is very good, and at its best even excellent. Even in
those early weak moments, though, Christopher Eccleston makes it all
work with his strong take on the character; he truly is a great
Doctor, and he doesn't get enough credit due to the perceived
unevenness of his all-too-short era. While he brings more humor and
less abrasiveness to the role, his darker and more embittered take on
the character shows strong similarities to what Peter Capaldi would
bring to the Twelfth Doctor seven seasons later. The Empty
Child/The Doctor Dances leaves absolutely no doubt about the
excellence of Eccleston's Doctor, or about the excellence of this era
at its best. Don't overlook it.
Share this review, Doctor Who.
Only one more installment in our Best of Doctor Who series remains! Next time, we'll take a look at the finest moments of the David Tennant and Matt Smith eras, and the best of the Peter Capaldi era so far.
- Christopher S.
Jordan