Doctor Who Re-Watch: Series 2, Episode 2 Tooth & Claw

I’ve got more than one of these Re-Watch posts in the bag so I’ll be posting one today and you’ll see another one Monday, after that I will be caught up to the viewing sched properly as we’ve not moved onto the Cybermen two-part arc yet in our Re-Watch.

For today though…TOOTH AND CLAW!

RTD had a theme whenever he started a new Series of DW, he’d do one intro Companion ep, and the next ep would ALWAYS be one that took place in the past (Episode 2’s in Order: THE UNQUIET DEAD, TOOTH AND CLAW, THE SHAKESPEARE CODE, and THE FIRES OF POMPEII) It was just something he did. Now one might argue that of those eps, THE FIRES OF POMPEII is the best…but I think there is more at work in TOOTH AND CLAW than anyone gives it credit for. So let’s dig in shall we?

The Doctor tries to take Rose to a concert in the 1970’s…but miscalculates and they end up in the 1870’s Scotland, not only that but they stumble across a covered carriage that is transporting the Queen herself (Victoria)! I love the idea that the Doctor is like a tornado in time; he attracts big events, people and fixed points like a loadstone, and the Queen is no exception. What’s even more interesting is that they are heading to Balmoral Castle, but are waylaid by a train derailment and end up at a retreat in the wilds of northern Scotland that the Queen’s deceased husband used to frequent called…dun dun dun….TORCHWOOD! Yep, this is the genesis of the future organization and the eventual spin-off show.

Sidenote: Torchwood is an anagram of Doctor Who. Ding ding ding…the more you know!

So the Torchwood estate has, unbeknownst to the Doctor, Rose and the Queen and Co., been taken over by a band of fighting mystic monks set on releasing a creature upon the Queen when she arrives. The creature, revealed just after the credits roll is some type of Werewolf. Cue the best special effects shown in DOCTOR WHO so far, the wolf is wonderfully realized, scary and growly. When the company arrives at the estate the monks disguise themselves as staff and the staff are kept in a sub basement with the creature, who of course escapes and attacks.

 There is a lot of little things in this episode that I enjoy watching. Firstly Rose’s attempts to get the Queen to say her famous line (“We are not amused.”) start off ridiculous and get more hilarious as the ep goes on. It’s one of those moments where you realize just how much FUN Rose has while adventuring with the Doctor.

Sidenote 2: This is something I feel was missing from recent companions Amy and Rory. They never seem to be having fun on their adventures, it’s all business.

Anyways, the Queen eventually obliges and says the line, much to Rose’s enjoyment. There is also the fact that David Tennant gets to use his actual Scottish accent in this episode since he is posing as Scottish Doctor and that must have been great for him, and we certainly enjoyed it. Watching the genesis of Torchwood and why it exists (created by Victoria in the waning minutes of the episode since she realizes that the British Empire is threatened by non-terrestrial enemies as well as terrestrial ones) is always fun, especially knowing where it went down the line. What it began as and what Jack Harkness fashions it into are two different things, and RTD let himself play about in the sandbox history of that.

The dénouement of the episode concerns the fact that Prince Albert was aware of the werewolf threat and had Victoria's famed diamond cut down so it fit into a telescope device in an observatory on the estate as a key component that would send the werewolf (which was actually an alien creature of light who was trapped on earth) gracefully into death forever. The etsate was designed in the past by the Earls father as a trap to catch the beast and set it free. It also shows us that in the final battle with the Wolf before subduing it, Victoria was bitten and the Doctor explains that her line always and forever after that had a blood abnormality (this is a truth on historical record actually) that no one could figure out. RTD made Queen Victoria and the current line royalty…part werewolf. THAT is super cool.

One of the more emotional moments in the story is when the owner of the estate, Sir Robert, after having begrudgingly let the Monks trap the Queen in the house for fear of what they would do to his family, sacrifices himself to save them, buying them time in the observatory room and preparing the device. It’s a small moment, but I always love how RTD can help redeem people. Even though he wasn’t a villain, Sir Robert made a mistake in allowing the Monks to get as far as they did and that made him a touch cowardly. Well the redemption in death allows you to walk away from the episode and not think poorly of Robert for nearly betraying his monarch. That’s kind of a big feat for a paragraph in a script to accomplish, as he could have just as easily allowed Robert to live and written his transgression away by reason of needing to save his family, no matter the cost. RTD takes the tougher route in the narrative flow and makes it look easy. Bravo sir.

There’s lots of comedy, action and dramatics in this episode and it just seems like the cast and crew had a blast making it. Great ep!

Next Time: Buffy’s mentor Giles, it turns out, is actually a human drinking bat creature form Space in SCHOOL REUNION! Also, Sarah Jane returns after 35 years with everyone’s favourite metallic dog K-9. “Affirmative, master.”

Doctor Who: The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe (Review)

On Christmas Day there are two things I look forward to:

1. Turkey dinner.

2. A new Doctor Who Christmas Special.

THE DOCTOR, THE WIDOW & THE WARDROBE was showrunner Steven Moffat’s second Christmas episode writerly foray (after last years Michael Gambon-filled A CHRISTMAS CAROL) and it had a few things going for it.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way first. Clearly the title is a nod to C.S. Lewis and the Narnia books, as is the idea of having a snowy alternate world setting be accessed VIA a humdrum object (in Narnia it is a wardrobe, here it is a big blue present box). Add the WWII setting and precocious kids and you have the makings of a nice homage to a literary classic. Oh and talk of the Uncle Digby who owns the house that mom and her two kids retreat to was clearly a super-nerdy nod to Digory Kirke from THE MAGICIAN’S NEPHEW (who accidentally releases the White Witch who harasses the kids in later books and owns the house with the wardrobe) though, that is where the similarities stop.

Matt Smith plays the Doctor with perfection in this one. Like a pastry that has risen to a golden brown, Smith has given the Doctor life and a vibrant personality and here he simply owns it. From minute one he’s making jokes and comments and spouting gobbledygook that entertains the two children to no end, whilst causing the mother to frown more than a bit.

There is a bit of a prologue wherein the Doctor hits the earth in an impact suit (which he put on backwards, in space) after causing an explosion aboard a starship. Madge (3 years before the events of the special) helps him back to his TARDIS and he promises to help her if she ever needs it.

Sadly things kind of go into status-quo territory fairly quickly, as three years pass. Where last year I could not truly tell you where things would go from minute to minute, this year I pretty much could. Madge’s husband is lost over the Channel during the war as his instruments malfunction, and she receives a telegram about his almost certain demise, which she keeps from her children. The youngest child Cyril Arwell, disappears though the present doorway onto the planet where it seems Christmas trees are forested and they seem to grow ornament appendages. He is then followed/chased by The Doctor, the boys elder sister Lily Arwell and eventually their worried/angry mother Madge Arwell. Supposedly a safe planet. That is until we find out that a group of foresters (excuse me while I have a super geek moment as they are from Androzani Major, which is the planet where the 5th Doctor met his end [THE CAVES OF THE ANDROZANI] and regenerated into the 6th, also consistently voted as the BEST episode of DOCTOR WHO ever) have informed our protagonists that the trees are about to be killed by acid rain. The chase is on to find Cyril and we get kind of a side story about a how the forest is alive and are these kind of tree-people. The whole living forest/tree people/Androzani foresters/acid rain threat plotline goes predictably where you think it will. The only real surprise is the resolution of said thread, which actually saved it from me thinking it was all going to be same-old, same old. The resolution of that ties nicely into Madge’s keeping the death of the kids father from them and the Doctor bounces around suitably unsure of what to do. In the end the story was decent enough, if not stellar. It felt like it could have been an episode during the actual season as opposed to a special. That’s not a bad thing, but I think we’ve come to expect more of a spectacle at Christmas is all. Perhaps we are spoiled.

No, this episode (for me at least) EXISTS for the epilogue. Now if you’ve not watched the ep yet, don’t read any further if you want to be unspoiled even though it’s not really a spoiler. In the epilogue The Doctor goes to the Ponds on Christmas. Amy finding him on the doorstep tells him it’s been two years (since the events in THE WEDDING OF RIVER SONG) and give’s him a deadpan “Oh, so you’re alive then? River told us.” line. Here is a moment in the Doctor’s life that is almost always the same. Whoever the companion is at the time invites him for Christmas dinner. I believe he has only ONCE come in for dinner. It’s just not his thing, and he mostly does his whole Last Of The Time Lords thing, turns down the invite and disappears with the TARDIS. Amy asks him in for dinner, and he initially turns her down, but then Rory says they have set a place for him, which sort of stuns him. Amy reiterates and says they ALWAYS set a place for him, every year. A few moments earlier with Madge and family as they cried happy tears he had remarked that happy crying was so “humany wumany”, and then... right then, standing on the doorstep of his best friends, he sheds his own happy tears and then goes inside for dinner. It’s one of those DW moments that I wait for. It’s also one of the moments when Matt Smith is every bit the actor that Tennant was. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house in the Neil Gaiman episode when he was crying as he said goodbye to Idris, and that was the first time I got to see it. Getting to see it here, especially at the end of the Christmas special was a real treat for me. It also shows me that Matt Smith really has such emotion that he can bring out in his acting, and I sometimes wish that we got to see it more often like we did with Tennant. At any rate, that last few minutes made the entire episode for me.

It is a decent enough entry into the DW holiday special category, and while not quite on par with last years episode, it was nonetheless a fun hour of TV.

Sadly, the wait begins now. Unlike any other years since its been back on TV, we will now wait until fall of 2012 to see any new DOCTOR WHO as Moffat has moved the start from the normal Spring date. Sigh.