It's been a desolate year for Doctor Who fans.
A whole 365 days to wait between episodes, the longest gap we've had
since the series was revived back in 2005. All we've had to fill the
void in the meantime was the disappointing spin-off Class
and the animated release of the
fan favourite The Power of the Daleks.
(At least, that's the case onscreen. Doctor Who has
been exceptionally well-presented in other media this year, with six
incarnations heading their own Titan comicbook series and a whopping
eleven in Big Finish audios.) Still, we do have the now-traditional
Christmas special, now such a mainstay that its absence from the BBC
schedules is unthinkable.
The Return of Doctor Mysterio (named
for the series' Mexican title, a name Peter Capaldi reportedly
adores) is a straightforward adventure, light of complexity and high
on fun. It doesn't feel particularly “special,” although its
status as the only episode of the year gives it a little more clout.
It isn't even especially Christmassy, with the festive trappings
limited to the opening scenes. Still, after the exceedingly festive
Last Christmas in
2014, a couple of years of less snow-covered adventures is no bad
thing. It's an episode with nothing more sophisticated to say than
“look, it's Doctor Who does
superheroes!” and that's fine. I don't understand the view of some
fans who attack this idea. Yes, it's derivative, but Doctor
Who has often been at its best
when it was copying other things. Do fans complain about The
Brain of Morbius being “just
Doctor Who does
Frankenstein” or The
Enemy of the World being “just
Doctor Who does Bond?”
Specifically, this is Stephen
Moffat's love letter to the Richard Donner/Christopher Reeve Superman
films, although there are nods
to other properties. Moffat has spoken at length about how Clark Kent
is his favourite superhero, specifically the man behind the Superman,
and it's easy to see why. Lois and Clark is a timeless story that
asks us to accept a ludicrous premise – that a woman can't
recognise a man in two different guises – in order to play a
farcical love story. It's exactly the sort of thing that's up
Moffat's alley, and Doctor Mysterio plays
out pretty much as you'd expect it to. It's perhaps an oversight,
though, to more or less ignore the modern superhero movie genre,
something that is ripe for its own parody. Nonetheless, it makes
sense for a Christmas Day treat; Superman – The Movie is
exactly the sort of feelgood family film people sit down to watch
together on the day.
As always, success hangs on the
writing and the cast, which come together to produce a very enjoyable
hour. As is traditional, the American characters are not played by
American actors; Justin Chatwin is Canadian and Charity Wakefield is
from very near my bit of England. They both inhabit their roles
perfectly. Chatwin plays Grant as a kind, witty if unconfident gent,
very Clark Kent indeed, although his mannerisms (and costume) as the
Ghost are more Batmanesque, all steely earnestness and deadpan
delivery. His power set is, however, 100% Superman, and this remains
the main basis for the character. Wakefield embodies her pseudo-Lois
Lane just as well, someone so focussed on certain aspects of her life
that it's jut about believable she can miss something “too stupid
to be allowed to continue.” Of course, a nanny is just about the
worst possible job for a part-time superhero to take on, but that's
all part of the conceit, and Moffat's script enjoys poking fun at
these small absurdities.
The casting of Grant's younger
selves is absolutely spot on, with Logan Hoffman and Daniel Lorente
working perfectly as the boy and teen versions respectively. They
share some excellent chemistry with Capaldi, who is finally being
allowed to use his natural flair for kids in his performance as the
Doctor. The high school scene is a particularly lovely little scene,
but it's kid Grant who'll stick in my memory most. With that much
comicbook art on his walls and a very snazzy set of dinosaur jammies,
he's the coolest kid ever to appear on Doctor Who.
It's a very nice touch correlating
the absence of Doctor Who with
the Doctor's twenty-four year time-out with River. The real surprise
here is how well Nardole works. As I've said before, I like Matt
Lucas, but he was wasted in The Husbands of River Song with
a stupid, one-note comedy character that wasn't very funny. This is
isn't quite the revamp that Donna Noble got, but the refined new
Nardole actually works very well as a companion. The comedy moments
work better, and Lucas adds a real pathos to the serious moments.
Nardole acts rather like a low-key agent in this episode, who keeps
the Doctor focussed and points out his errors. I'm not convinced he
can work well throughout a whole season, but we'll see how it runs.
There's a nice about-face regarding
the villains of the episode. Adetomiwa Edun (another Brit) plays Mr
Brock, blatantly set up to be the grand, Lex Luthor-esque villain,
before the alien/German (delete as applicable) Dr Sim (Aleksander
Jovanovic) pulls his brain out. It was a surprise to see the
head-splitting aliens from last year's special return, but it was
written right there, in the name Harmony Shoal. This is, of course,
about three thousand years before the previous episode, making it
even more of an expected and skewed two-parter. Also, I had hoped the
brain aliens would be the Morpho brains from The Keys of
Marinus, but that's ridiculously
obscure. That'd be like bringing the Movellans back, or something.
Continuity Corner: The
Shoal's plan, to fake an alien invasion to cover up their own
operation, is almost exactly the same as the Slitheen's in Aliens
of London,
right down to replacing political figures by putting zips in their
heads. Yet some people think it's a Watchmen
reference.
The
Doctor states that, after many attempts to conquer the Earth, none
has ever succeeded. Clearly he's forgetting the first such example in
the series, The
Dalek Invasion of Earth,
which ran smoothly for ten years before he turned up.
The
Doctor's device to reduce time distortion in New York would seem to
be his attempt to clean up after the events of The
Angels Take Manhattan.
Being alone post-Clara, he's probably feeling lonely and is thinking
of Amy and Rory again. The opening scene with young Grant seems to
take place before The
Husbands of River Song.
Comicbook Corner: Superman
references
abound in this episode, mostly little visual things like the Daily
Planet styled
globe atop the Harmony Shoal building. Mr Brock refers to a Miss
Siegal and a Miss Shuster, named for Jerry and Joe, the creators of
Superman for Action
Comics back
in 1938. “Lucy Lombard” brings to mind Clark Kent's romantic
interests Lois Lane and Lana Lang, while “Grant Gordon” continues
the tradition of alliterative superhero identity names, such as Clark
Kent, Peter Parker, Stephen Strange and Bruce Banner.
“With
great power comes great responsibility,” is, of course, a direct
lift from Spider-Man. “Go get 'em,” just needs a “tiger” to
match up.
Best line: “You're
kind of wet.”
“I
prefer mild-mannered.”
No comments:
Post a Comment