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25TH DECEMBER 2007
(75-MINUTE CHRISTMAS SPECIAL)
This time last
year, when The Runaway Bride was broadcast, the Doctor Who
Christmas Special was hailed as being part of the “Christmas Tradition”.
This year, the Doctor Who Christmas Special has managed to go one
better and establish itself as a national institution.
Like its two
predecessors, Voyage of the Damned is a star-studded and
(relatively) big-budget blockbuster. Obvious parallels have been drawn
with epic disaster movies like Titanic and The Poseidon
Adventure, but I was also put in mind of a few classic Doctor Who
serials to boot. The notion of the sailing ship in space evokes strong
visual imagery from the Peter Davison serial Enlightenment, and the
art-deco ‘Host’ robots are nothing
if not a modern spin on Chris Boucher’s
Robots of Death, last seen on television in Tom Baker’s day. Even
the villain of the piece, Max Capricorn, looks a bit like something out of
Frontios, though I wouldn’t let that put you off.
In short,
Voyage of the Damned is one of the most spectacular and extravagant
episodes that we have seen since the series returned to our screens in
2005. Clocking in at just less than seventy-five minutes, this episode has
the feel of a Hollywood smash hit that has been condensed and poured into
a running time about half the length of what you might generally expect.
The result is an exceedingly fast-paced and frantic action-packed drama.
And it
is not just a disaster movie; it’s a disaster movie with a twist.
The Titanic doesn’t just sail merrily into the stellar equivalent of an
iceberg – it’s sabotaged. There’s a baddie. There
are homicidal robots on
the loose. And the stakes are higher too. The Titanic has a nuclear stormdrive which, if the ship does indeed crash on Earth, will obliterate
all life.
The episode
starts well. I particularly like the first couple
of minutes where the
Doctor is just strolling about on
board the ship, soaking in the
atmosphere and getting
his breath back after all those ructions with the
Master
and then his former self. Not only does it give Russell T
Davies an
opportunity to do a little bit of world-building,
but it also allows
Murray Gold and Yamit Mamo to get
their faces seen on screen as they
together perform
Winter Wonderland; I Wish It Could Be Christmas
Everyday; and this year’s Doctor Who Christmas Song
(there’s
another “Christmas Tradition” for you!), The
Stowaway. I’m sure a
few fans will have also noticed the
revamped theme tune that played over
the opening titles,
the first time that the theme tune has been
significantly
altered since David Tennant first took on the role of the
Doctor back in The Christmas Invasion.
The new theme
tune is very
similar the old, thankfully, but Gold has given
it a bit more
oomph; it sounds like a rock band is playing
it, not an
orchestra! I love it.
These
establishing scenes also introduce us to
the story’s plentiful and diverse
cast of support-
ing characters. One has to admire Davies’ skill
here; the way
that he can squeeze so much of a
character’s essence into such a
short amount of
screen time is truly remarkable. Take Geoffrey
Palmer’s
Captain Hardaker, for example - all
that conflict
condensed into about a page of dialogue, if that. The script is actually
quite reflective later on when Max Capricorn says something about the
Doctor’s banter having
“not a word
wasted” – Davies could well have been describing his own script.
Indeed, each of
the Doctor’s little band of wannabe-survivors are fantastic and
fascinating characters with captivating little back-stories. As well as
the horrible git (Gray O'Brien) that everyone just knows is going
to survive, we have Bannakaffalatta, the cyborg with a complex about what
he is (an allegory for homosexuality if I’ve ever seen one); Midshipman
Alonso Frame (oh yes – “Allons-y, Alonso”); Clive Swift’s (who fans may
remember from his outst-anding performance as Jobel in Revelation of the
Daleks) comical, and really quite amiable Mr Copper; as well as both
Morvin and Foon Van Hoff, two down-to-earth, adorable fatties that the
Doctor instantly befriends.
Though I found
it hard to take Russell Tovey’s (The History Boys) Frame seriously as he’s
the spit of my elder sister’s boyfriend, I really loved all of the others,
in particular Mr Copper who had me in hysterics at times owing to his
great “knowledge” about Earth. I’d even go so far as to say that without
the absurd humour that Mr Copper brings to the script, Voyage of the
Damned might well have proven just that bit too grim for a Yuletide
transmission.
But, despite the
terrific performances of each and every member of the cast, there’s only
one name that people are going to be talking about when they mention
Voyage of the Damned – Kylie Minogue. I must admit that in the lead-up
to Christmas, I did have some reservations about the pop princess being in
Doctor Who, but thankfully these were all dissipated within about
thirty seconds of her appearing on screen. Minogue is superb as Astrid;
superb. She embodies all the qualities that a companion should possess,
and quite possibly just that little bit more.
The companion is the
audience’s anchor, and because Astrid is an alien (albeit a
human-looking one), for the first time in the revived series we get to see
things from a new and refreshing perspective. Astrid’s awe at a mundane,
stinking London street is in principle exactly the same as Martha’s wonder
at New Earth or even Rose’s reaction to Platform
One, but in practical
terms Astrid’s joy even makes the Doctor look at the Earth, his home from
home, with different eyes. I think that the highest compliment that I can
give to Minogue is that when I was watching Voyage of the Damned,
it didn’t really enter my head that I was watching ‘David and Kylie’ at
all. I was watching the Doctor and Astrid.
The baddie is
also very well done. Max Capricorn may look like a cross between a
redress-ed prop from Frontios and Dr Evil from Austin Powers,
but George Costigan brings him to life with incredible charisma – no small
feat when considering that all he had to act with was his face, one eye of
which had been blanked out by a comically-oversized contact lens. I also
like the fact that Capricorn is a beautifully honest crook, ruthless and
unprincipled to the core and proud of it. His business is failing and he
wants to set himself up for
retirement, so what does he do? Engineer a scam that will see a planet
destroyed and his former associates incarcerated, all so that he can make
a buck. Brilliant.
I’m also very
impressed with the Host robots. The designers have taken those strong and
distinctive art-deco characteristics that made the Voc robots of The
Robots of Death so memorable and combined them with a traditional
angelic form. The result is that much more haunting than any other
artificial life forms that we have seen in Doctor Who ever before.
These Hosts have a sort of ‘fallen angel’ thing going on which works
phenomenally on so
many different levels, a bit like the Beast in The
Satan Pit. As one would expect though,
the Hosts’ appearance has
caused some considerable hullabaloo within the religious world,
some groups
taking issue with Voyage of the Damned most vociferously. If the
production team ever needed proof that their series has equalled, and in
all likelihood surpassed, the dizzy of heights of the mid-1970s serials,
then they now have it - I don’t think a Doctor Who story has caused
this much pandemonium since the days of legendary television watchdog Mary
Whitehouse!
“Information: you are all going to die.”
Nevertheless, if
one is able to put their blazing moral outrage aside, the high-octane
action here matches anything that one would pay six quid or so to see in
the cinema. There are some truly amazing set pieces – the steward being
blown into space; the riveting chase through the ship; the crossing of the
stereotypically precarious bridge whilst Host robots
hover above; I
could go on. We even get to see the Titanic narrowly avoid a collision
with Buckingham Palace. Cheesy as hell, but unquestionably compelling.
What I like the
most about Voyage of the Damned though is its brutality. Despite
the festive setting, it is not a kind episode by any stretch of the
imagination. The majority of the Titanic’s passengers and crew die,
including Astrid.
Now the death of
a companion always comes a shocker (and a bona fide companion she
is too, according to Davies), particularly when it is kept under wraps and
particularly when it is done as expressively as it is here. What’s more,
unless like myself you follow the Doctor’s adventures away from the
television screen, then the death of companion is extremely rare. In fact
only Katarina, Sara, and Adric have been killed on television. To put this
into sharper focus still, the first two were both killed in the same
1965/66 serial, meaning that in well over forty years only one companion
has ever bought the bullet on television. Well now it’s two. Quite
fittingly though, Astrid’s death is noble, epic and profoundly cinematic.
“I’m the Doctor. I’m a Time Lord. I’m from the planet Gallifrey in the
constellation of Kasterborous.
I’m 903 years old and I’m the man who is
gonna save your lives and all six billion people on the planet below.”
And then there
is the man himself, David Tennant. He is making it so hard for viewers to
maintain their allegiances to Doctors past; he’s just so damn good. His big Time Lordy speech about being 903 years old (how magnificently
naff - he has aged three years in
three years of telly! But are those
Earth years or Gallifreyan…?) and about how he’s going
to save the world
is absolute gold.
His confidence, whilst well founded, borders on conceit and sets up his
loss that is to come perfectly. Tennant somehow manages to walk that fine
line between making the Doctor brilliant and making him vulnerable. One
minute he’s saving the world at the same time as claiming to have “got
the last room” in Bethlehem just over two thousand years ago, and the next
minute he is kicking a transmat that he just can’t fix as his newest
friend (one whose name is an anagram of TARDIS, note) fades away into
stardust.
“I can do
anything”, the Doctor yells, knowing full well that he can’t.
What rounded the
whole sequence off so well for me though were Mr Copper’s wise words about
how someone would inevitably become a monster if they had the power to
choose who survives and who does not. How many people would have marked Rickston Slade
for death, who survives only to make a fortune and then gloat
about it? How many people would have saved both the fatties and Bannakaffalatta? It really makes you think.
And to think
that Tennant lost his mother during the filming of Voyage of the Damned,
you really have to take your hat off to him in how he gives such a
controlled and credible perfor-mance. Whether he will be around for the
2010 series or not is still anybody’s guess, but if
in postponing
Series 5 for a year the production team have managed to keep Tennant on
for even just a
precious few specials longer then it was well worth it in my book.
But did I have
any gripes with Voyage of the Damned? The honest answer is not
really. I was a little bit irritated by some of the guest stars that had
been really hyped up – such as Doctor Who veterans Bernard Cribbins
and Geoffrey Palmer – making only fleeting appe-arances, though
it seems that this is going to be remedied at least in Cribbins’ case as
his character is set to be revealed as Donna’s Grandfather next year.
“Unsinkable,
that’s me.”
Personally I’d
have also liked to see that old master of Earthonomics, Mr Copper, leave
with the Doctor in the TARDIS at the end, but deep down I know that it
wouldn’t really have been feasible. Swift’s face on the cover of a
Doctor Who Annual or DVD just would not have the same sort of
commercial impact that Billie Piper’s or Catherine Tate’s would. That
said, speaking as a Doctor Who fan now, rather than a regular telly
watcher, this sort of thing is
my one
aggravation with the revived series – they can’t do anything that takes
the show off the beaten track. It has to be the Doctor and an attractive
young woman, preferably from London, travelling the universe and fighting
monsters. You might get the odd firecracker
like Captain
Jack thrown into the mix, but essentially the format must remain the same.
The above
notwithstanding, at its peak 13.8 million viewers – over half the
Christmas audience – were watching Voyage of the Damned, a
statistic that I feel speaks for itself, especially considering that we
live in an age of multi-channel digital television. Doctor
Who
hasn’t enjoyed such ratings since industrial action briefly took ITV off
the air in the
late 1970s,
meaning that the audience had a choice between watching Tom Baker run
around Paris in a big scarf or watching static. Unsurprisingly about
fourteen and a half
million of them
chose Baker.
Regrettably
though, such profound success brings with it the vilification of everybody
from thin-skinned religious zealots to a befuddled Titanic survivor. The
latter, for some unfatho-mable reason, apparently took offence because
Doctor Who had the gall to set its third Christmas Special on board a space
ship called the Titanic. Why was this survivor not whinging to The Sun
when James Cameron was counting his money in 1997, hmm?
How a Doctor
Who episode set on board a spaceship called the Titanic can be accused
of causing offence when Hollywood really went to town on making a
megabucks movie specifically about the Titanic disaster I have no idea.
And what do these people reckon to war films, ey? Why do the brave men and
women who have fought for their country not kick off when people make
films and write books about the wars in which they fought? What about the
real life issues raised in soap operas? I mean, come on! All art and
literature is derived from life in some shape or form. Where do you draw
the line? I think on balance, nearly fourteen million people giving up
more than an hour of their Christmas Day to be entertained (and thoroughly
entertained, if the Audience Appreciation figures are anything
to go by)
by Doctor Who easily outweighs the bellyaching of a few
conscientious objectors who, let’s not forget, always have those two
magical options of turning over or turning off.
Voyage of the
Damned
closes with a dedication to Verity Lambert, Doctor Who’s founding
producer who sadly passed away on the eve of the series’ forty-fourth
anniversary. I think it’s fair to say that she would have doubtlessly
enjoyed this rip-roaring adventure, and more to the point that she would
have been incredibly proud of the show as well as all those involved in
its production. In my opinion, Voyage of the Damned is a tremendous
improvement upon The Runaway Bride last year and, whilst I don’t
think any Christmas Special is ever going to top The Christmas
Invasion, this feature-length epic came damned close. Already, I find
myself wondering what we’re going to get next Christmas; what blockbuster
movie Davies is going to pay homage to next. My money’s on dinosaurs…
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