Television Heaven roundup

It's been quiet here of late, but I have been a busy person elsewhere, including writing up a bunch of stuff for Television Heaven.

Having discovered the truly remarkable Severance just before the second season began, thereby rather deftly missing the three-year hiatus by being slow off the mark, I've given both seasons a spoiler-lite review.

Twenty years after it aired, and with a new, fifteenth series just round the corner, I've written an in-depth, episode-by-episode review of Series One of Doctor Who, starring Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper.

We've also got some classic Doctor Who with the bizarre Sylvester McCoy serial Paradise Towers, Chris Boucher's three Tom Baker stories The Face of Evil, The Robots of Death and Image of the Fendahl, and the Jon Pertwee classic Doctor Who and the Silurians.

I've gone even more retro with my old favourite Mike & Angelo, that CITV classic that might just have been inspired by Doctor Who (well, let's be honest, it was.) Both incarnations of Angelo get their moment in this overview.

All three of Sky One's adaptations of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels now have reviews, including the Christmas-themed Hogfather, the first adventure The Colour of Magic, and the superb Going Postal.

And, of course, there's more to come.

Fifteen years of New Who

Astonishingly, today marks fifteen years since "Rose" was broadcast on BBC1, kicking off a whole new era of Doctor Who. It's bizarre enough to me that this means it's the five-year anniversary of my ten-year retrospective on the episode. It doesn't really seem feasible that  was sat writing about this five years ago.

Ruseell T. Davies has marked the occasion by releasing a long-hidden short piece called "Doctor Who and the Time War," in classic Target style, which was originally written for the fiftieth anniversary. It was scrapped when Steven Moffat made it clear he had his own plans for what to do with this unseen bit of Who lore, but now RTD has made it available here. It even has Lee Binding's special cover illustration intact. You can watch that first meeting between the Doctor and Rose on the same link, then read this special prequel.

I absolutely love this. I adore The Day of the Doctor, the War Doctor and the regeneration Moffat wrote for the Eighth Doctor, but the version of the Time War he presented was more of a space war. RTD presents his vision, which had all along been far stranger, far harder to visualise and certainly impossible to put to the screen. I wrote my own version, of course, like many fans, three years after "Rose," and that's still available here, and while RTD's is heavily influenced by the New Adventures and the DWM back-up strips, mine is clearly following on from BBC Books Eighth Doctor Adventures. It's not quite as good as RTD's, I'll admit.

It's wonderful that the various showrunners of Doctor Who are producing this material while people are stuck at home, frustrated and scared. RTD is following up with a "Rose" sequel later, after the planned watch party of the episode, which itself follows one for The Day of the Doctor last weekend for which Moffat gave us a sublimely silly little intro. Chris Chibnall, the current chief, has joined in too, of course, along the Doctor herself, Jodie Whittaker. Chibs has penned a fun little cutaway set in the first moments of the Thirteenth Doctor's regeneration, "Things She Thought While Falling." Naturally this is more oriented towards kids, as opposed to long term fans who were watching fifteen years ago. And then there's "Incoming Message from the Doctor," just about the most beautiful minute of Doctor Who footage ever, presumably filmed in a cupboard in Whittaker's house and exactly the right message for the many children who are at home worrying right now.

Who Novelisation Quest 9: "Rose" by Russell T. Davies

When the relaunch of the Target imprint was announced, there was a brief period of wondering which episodes would be adapted. There was one story, however, that was never in question. "Rose" began the resurrection of Doctor Who on screen in 2005, and so it was quite right that it would be part of the resurrection of the Target novelisations. Technically, this is the first release in the new run, although in practice they all came out together. Nonetheless, it still feels like the first. Even after thirteen years, "Rose" feels like a beginning.

It's a bit of a coup to get Russell the T back onboard to novelise his own story, but equally it's hardly surprising that he jumped at the chance. After all, he's a dyed in the wool Who fan who grew up reading these books. Even he has said in an interview that he feels like he really "counts" as a Doctor Who writer now. Davies has written for a DW book line before: Damaged Goods for the New Adventures back in the 90s. There are some similarities between the two books - the alien life meets council estates approach of Damaged Goods clearly signposted how Davies would retool Doctor Who later - they are very, very different books. Don't expect heavy drug use or gay sex from a Target novelisation, even in 2018. Nonetheless, Davies goes further with his novelisation than he ever did onscreen, with asides to Rose's abusive criminal ex-boyfriend and a much more LGBT-diverse cast of characters than were ever on television.

"Rose" the episode was a breathless affair, deliberately straightforward to make it as accessible as possible to new viewers, many of whom had never seen Doctor Who. The novelisation is a completely different animal, released into a different environment and for a different audience. Davies elaborates his original story in great depth - essential to make a forty-five minute episode into a novel-length story - and gives far more backstory to both major characters and walk-on parts. The episode began with Rose looking for Wilson to give him the lottery money, before being told that "Wilson's dead." The novel makes Wilson a character in his own right, before describing how the bastard has been creaming money from the Lotto fund, before leaving him to the mercies of the Autons. 

There's a lot of this in the novelisation; tweaking characters so that we're happier with their fates. Mickey comes off best; his backstory is cleared up, and he is made into something of a local hero, central to his little estate community with a band of close mates whom he looks out for. Given that he's a more positively written character in the book, Rose's dismissal of him as we saw on TV would have made her seem even harsher than before. In turn, then, her reaction to Mickey's actions and her final goodbye to him are kinder and more understanding. It's a complete reworking of the story, keeping the same story, with only a handful more plot beats, but bringing so much more depth that it feels almost completely new.

Given that the novelisations are aimed at established fans, Rose in book form is far more steeped in Doctor Who mythology than the episode ever was. Not only is the intended audience different, the series has moved on to the point where the first Doctor can co-star alongside the current incarnation at Christmas. The 2005 episode went to lengths to avoid looking back at earlier iterations of the series, with only the basic trappings - police box, sonic screwdriver - and the choice of the Autons as the monster to link it back to the classic series. 

One bit that really stood out for fans in the original episode was Rose's visit to Clive in his obsession shed. Aside from one line - "That's your Doctor there, isn't it?" - nothing suggested that the Doctor had ever looked like anything other than Christopher Eccleston. Of course, it's easy to understand why RTD didn't want to chuck in a bunch of old men in funny clothes and confuse new viewers, but there's no way that scene would be written the same way today. And so it's not. In the book, Clive files his documents by incarnation, kept in strict order as best he can figure out. Rose is shown photos of various Doctors, not only recognisable incarnations (although she does see the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth Doctors) but even potential future incarnations. The novels have been introducing possible future Doctors since Battlefield but it still adds a little something to the expanding expanded universe, and RTD really flies with it. Apparently, some day in the future the Doctor will look like a dark-skinned woman and wield a flaming sword, while in another life they'll be childlike and use a wheelchair, and own a robot dog (K-9 mark five?) In fact, it makes it clear that Davies was displaying admirable restraint when he wrote the script for "Rose."

Also, hats off to him for managing to incorporate Graham Norton's unintended voiceover from the original broadcast. Now that's novelisation.

Data: 
First published by BBC Books (Target imprint) in 2018
Based on "Rose," first broadcast in 2005
Audiobook read by Camille Coduri

REVIEW: The Black Archive 1 - Rose

There's no shortage of programme guides and companion pieces to Doctor Who - I own a fair few of them - but occasionally a volume or series comes along which adds something special to the arena. The Black Archive is a new series of analytic books intended to take individual Doctor Who stories and engage with them in greater depth than has usually been attempted, with a number of notable fan authors taking an academic approach to the subject. The first four volumes take on Rose, The Massacre, The Ambassadors of Death and Death in Heaven, covering the breadth of Doctor Who history from Hartnell to Capaldi.

The task of launching the series goes to Jon Arnold, who previously co-edited the well-received Shooty Dog Thing: 2th and Claw, as well as contributing to numerous books and fanzines, both with fiction and non-fiction. The obvious choice of story might be An Unearthly Child, but Arnold instead takes on the episode that relaunched the series, describing it as "the most radical episode ever broadcast under the title Doctor Who." He makes a compelling argument for this throughout the book, but accepts that Russell T. Davies built on what came before. Arnold makes some fascinating comparisons between An Unearthly Child, Rose and the 1996 Doctor Who telemovie - a launch, a relaunch and a failed relaunch - and looking at how each approached the task. The book explores Rose in the context of Doctor Who as a long-running series, and in the context of the TV and cutural landscape of 2005 - already a strangely different world to today. While mostly looking from the perspective of storytelling and television, Arnold does take the occasional look at the mythology of the series; there's a fascinating footnote where he describes the ninth Doctor as "a kind of sacrifice to the Doctor's conscience" in light of the events of the Time War and The Day of the Doctor.

This is a book, and a series, aimed at those already steeped in Doctor Who, and as such, the initial passages, which summarise the plot of Rose and its development, seem rather unnecessary. Once it gets to the meat of it, though, this is an excellent exploration of a groundbreaking episode, and a fine start to what promises to be a remarkable series of books.

You can buy The Black Archive books from Obverse Books, in electronic or physical formats.

Rose Retrospective - Ten Years On

Today marks ten years since Doctor Who returned to BBC1, with the episode Rose. It's actually a touch over ten years since I saw it – no, I didn't download the leaked rough copy, I got a sneaky peek at the BBC. A few days makes no odds though. It's ten years! Only in Doctor Who does the tenth anniversary follow the fiftieth. I do remember that first viewing well. A mere stripling of twenty-one, taking the day off work specifically to go watch Doctor Who in London, with Dave Pound, who had bravely kept the flame alive, performing a Davros impression on Channel 4 a couple of years previously. There was a gent dressed as Sylvester McCoy there (“My Jon Pertwee outfit is at the cleaners,”) as well as a reassuring number of children. Indoctrination, I guess. Of course, Clayton Hickman, then editor of Doctor Who Magazine, and Tom Spilsbury, his deputy and successor, were there as the organisers of the opportunity. The atmosphere was one of palpable excitement. What new fans don't often realise is just how good it was to have Doctor Who back on the telly where it belongs. It was perhaps even more exciting for a relative newbie like me. Doctor Who had never been a fixture of the schedules for me. I'm of the lost generation, growing up in the wilderness, with only the TV Movie and occasional repeats to live on. This was Doctor Who, back in its natural habitat: Saturday teatimes on BBC1.

The first thing that we remarked upon, coming out of the showing, was just how fast-paced it all was. Watching hours of seventies telly settles you into a gentler pace of television, but even so, this was rapid by 2005 standards. What would once have been a leisurely four-parter was squeezed into forty-three minutes of frenetic action and humour. That's not to say there weren't slower moments, but they were pauses in the momentum in order to catch our breath. It seemed over almost as soon as it started, and I felt desperate for some more. What stuck out, on that first viewing, was the casual modernity of it all. Again, this is a consequence of being a fan of the old serials; Doctor Who felt like something of the past, and this had just changed. The Doctor was cheeky, angry, soulful, and very northern, swaggering about in a leather jacket and boots. He didn't look like the Doctor, he didn't sound like the Doctor; but as he faced the Nestene, gleefully ran from explosions and looked Rose in the eye while he waxed poetic on the turn of the Earth, he was the Doctor.

Rose, too, was a revelation. It's not true to say that she was the first strong or capable companion, nor that she was the first to be the focus of the story. However, Rose came across as a real person in a way that very few, if any, of the classic series companions did. She was believably common, everyday, confident even as she was almost overwhelmed by the bizarre universe she walked into. And she almost casually saved the Doctor from the Nestene, citing her school gymnastics medal. What I loved about that was that she got the bronze, not the gold. It's those little asides that make Russell T's writing seem so real. Mickey, too, was far better than anyone gave him credit. Noel Clarke himself decried his performance in the first few episodes, but I actually think he's perfectly fine here, particularly as the weirdly stultified Auton Mickey. No less impressive is Camille Coduri, who made Jackie, a potentially irritating as hell character, completely endearing. The choice of the Autons as the opening monster was inspired. They're such a straightforward idea to get across – walking dummies animated by a plastic alien intelligence. There's a reason they worked so well both in 2005 back in the seventies; they inhabit the deepest part of the uncanny valley. My best friend Shelly was absolutely terrified of them. Updated, so that they looked a little more real, they were a straight-up recreation of the classic foes.

Watching Rose now is a strange experience. It seems both so recent and so long ago. What was, at the time, such an on-the-button update of a dated programme now seems terribly unsophisticated. However, that is, in its way, part of the appeal. More complex stories were to come later, with the likes of Dalek, The Empty Child and The Parting of the Ways. This was the easy way in; contemporary England, bold and saleable with landmarks aplenty, with an easily graspable alien facing recognisable characters. Then the trailer for next week's episode, The End of the World, displayed weird blue dwarfs and tree people and a giant head in a tank, and we realised that the weird shit was just round the corner. Over the years, Doctor Who has become more complex, more audacious and more surprising, but none of it could have been possible were it not for the success of this first series. Christopher Eccleston, with only three months in the role, is often unfairly overlooked by fans. He is treated by many as a warm up for Tennant's hugely successful incarnation. Billie Piper, who once seemed irreplaceable, is now such a part of the past that it was genuinely strange seeing her return for The Day of the Doctor. So this is how the older fans felt when they sat down and watched Rose, I guess. The newest series, existing only because of the triumphs of the past. There are die-hard Doctor Who fans who have never watched Eccleston's episodes, let alone anything earlier. But there are also young adults, the same age I was when I saw Rose, who were ten or eleven when it first aired. The perfect age to be introduced to Doctor Who. No idea that this was the twenty-seventh run of an ancient series. It was new and bizarre and gripping, and, belching bins, dodgy photoshop and questionable music choices aside, it entranced a new generation of fans.