14/04/13 “The Rings of Akhetan” & “Cold War”
“Mars will rise again, I promise you.”–The Doctor
Well, considering I watched “The Rings of
Akhetan” the day after broadcast extremely sick with flu, you should be
grateful you’re getting a review at all.
Moreover, the fact that it managed to burst through my fog of snot and
pain illustrates the point wonderfully:
this was really good New Who, and I haven’t felt this assuredly
behind an episode since probably 2010. I
understand that it was a Marmite story, and I can somewhat sympathize with
those from whom it would not have been their cup of tea. However, I cannot agree and found it a welcome
breath of fresh air—something different, something that showed the wide
range of what exactly Doctor Who can be, and not only was I grateful for
it, it’s reinvigorated my excitement for catching the new program every
Saturday. Well-done, Neil Cross.
Given that I didn’t take notes, however, you
will have to deal with my exuberance rather than my exacting point-by-point plot
analysis, but perhaps that will be a breath of fresh air for you, too. For some reason—perhaps the setting, perhaps
the costumes, perhaps some superficial psychogeographic similarities to “The
Greatest Show in the Galaxy”—for me this story had flavors of the Seventh
Doctor, and perhaps not even TV Seventh Doctor, but edging toward the NAs. Granted, I’ve only read two of them so my
opinion is by no means expert.
Nevertheless, pacing, emphasis, presentation, visuals—all of it
conspired to give a completely different tonality than anything we’ve seen on Doctor
Who on TV for a long time. Perhaps
that’s what annoyed some people. Large panoplies
of colorful and magnificently costumed aliens are a rarity, but it’s no secret
that they are involved in some of my favorite stories—“The Curse of Peladon”
and “The End of the World,” that’s two.
The fully-enclosed market nature of the
setting brought to mind “The Long Game” and more relevantly “The Beast Below,”
but this is no bad thing. I’m
appreciating the latter more and more as time passes. Nevertheless, I didn’t really want to do a
whole new revamp of the structure for past seasons, so the fact that “The Rings
of Akhetan” almost immediately stopped resembling “The Beast Below”
pleased and surprised me. The CGI was
beautiful and must have satisfied the young (and the CGI-mad) though I did feel
the need to nitpick not only the Doctor and Clara standing outside the TARDIS
and being able to breathe (yes, this was explained in “The Beast Below”
coincidentally, but never to my satisfaction) but how Clara could ride her
moped back and forth through atmosphere and not die. Oh well.
I’ve commented before on the increasing child-centrism
of Vast Toffee Doctor Who, and while “The Rings of Akhetan” shares both
this and a musical theme with “A Christmas Carol,” they achieve success in both
areas in differing ways. The child lead
for the Queen of Years had to be good to keep this story from overloading on
the cheese factor, and in my opinion Emilia Jone succeeded brilliantly. She was utterly engaging and packed a set of
pipes; in fact, though I have no problem with Katherine Jenkins, to me she was
even more compelling. Pretty much everything with Merry Galel I loved. And the songs were utterly gorgeous,
reminding me of the sweeping and yet somehow strange quality of things like
Karl Jenkins’ “Adiemus.” I mean, we had
ritualized chanting in “Death to the Daleks,” but what a load of crap compared
to this. I love the idea of the Doctor as an observer in a ritual event; he
doesn’t often get to be seen doing much of this on TV though he does talk about
it a lot and we see it in other media. I
love the idea of a culture with psychometry at the heart of its currency
(though it does really set up the “don’t show the gun on the mantelpiece if you’re
not going to use it” policy).
The Doctor was rather subdued throughout
most of the story, serving as guide and commentator (again, a bit Seventh
Doctor-y, I felt) though he did sum up the heart of Doctor Who by telling
Clara that his job is not to stand by; I didn’t think of it at the time, but
this must be further embroidery on his reform because of Clara in “The Snowmen.” Clara did well here. She had a different but similarly important
function to Amy in “The Beast Below” here.
She did all that a companion
should do—empathize with the lost and fearful, take risks, and make
sacrifices. It was a whirlwind
ride. The Doctor, however, did not
really come alive until he confronted the Old God. The Eleventh Doctor’s shouting contests have
always had mixed results for me, but I very much liked this one because it reminded
me of the Eighth Doctor confronting the creature in Phobos. The creature in Phobos, naturally
enough, fed on adrenaline-fueled fear rather than genuine fear. Therefore, the Doctor was an ideal food
source, for as the creature pointed out, a part of him revels in adventures and
death-defying feats, to the point it is vanity and potentially harmful. Finding this out about the Doctor concerned
Lucie, and it concerned the Doctor as well, who felt he had to deny it. He was able to defeat the creature in the
end, just as the Doctor’s surfeit of life experience sates the beast. However, it’s Clara’s “never-was” that
destroys the Old God. However
mumbo-jumbo-y this sounds—though, to be fair, the Angels feeding on trapped
people’s future existences cancelled out at Winter Quay made about as much
sense—it feels right, and I can accept it.
I loved the pseudo-Egyptian feel, giving us
the promised-but-never-delivered ancient Egyptian goddess on the Orient Express
(well, not quite, but it fulfilled my yen for it). The “alarm clock” for the Old God was
undoubtedly inspired as much by The Mummy franchise as by “Pyramids of
Mars,” but it was genuinely scary and created a weird sense of denial and
dread, very much like waiting for an alarm clock to go off. I also loved the Vigil in the sense I loved
the Slabs in “Smith and Jones,” though the former were far creepier and looked
as though Mike Mignola had just drawn them from Hellboy. I really did like that, I have to
confess.
I ALMOST forgot. Hated the prequel. Hated it.
Could have doomed the otherwise terrific episode. Why did we need to see any of that? Couldn’t we “get” it from Clara’s explanation
of the leaf when she offers it up as a “never-was”? Why not show Ace’s grandmother and mother in
the teaser for “Curse of Fenric”?! I
hated being manipulated like a bleating lamb and moreover, how creepy and
lecherously stalker-ish for the Doctor to be seen hanging around like
that. Perhaps the Seventh Doctor would
have done it, but he would never have gotten caught and we would never
have seen it.
And on to “Cold War.” I’m pleased to say that, though with multiple
viewings I may not be as enamored with this piece, I have to say it’s one of
Mark Gatiss’ better Doctor Who TV scripts and a pretty good
follow-up. It’s the kind of story I
think only an old skool Who fan could have written, but at the same time
it doesn’t have the damning interference of someone like, oh, Ian Levine. So, by implication, taking place in 1983, “Cold
War” encompasses “Warriors of the Deep”; the submarine setting “The Sea Devils”;
and while the whole base-under-siege story is a proud inheritance of the Second
and Third Doctor eras (with a mixed pedigree, to be sure), much of “Cold War”
specifically reminded me of a Dracula spin off as adapted by radio,
written by the very clever Robert Forrester, called Voyage of the
Demeter. It’s possible, given Gatiss’
literary predilections, that he may have even written with this in mind, and
the setting of the North Pole and constant references to a “monster” might
conceivably suggest Frankenstein. So,
it’s got a lot of backing (or baggage?) behind it. Nevertheless, I would say it takes the
claustrophobic setting of Voyage of the Demeter and blasts out of the
water (heh) any reminder of “Warriors of the Deep” by learning from its
mistakes. It’s dimly lit. Shots are tight and never show anyone’s
feet. Water, spray, lighting, and sound
all try to convince you they’re on board a Russian sub. There are other lessons “Cold War” has taken
from old Who, too.
Now, I know all about Russian stories on the
BBC and what trouble the “do the accent, don’t do the accent” debates can
cause. I accept the decision to give
these characters Soviet names and personalities without any attempt to Russify
them further (personally I thought Voyage of the Demeter got around this
fantastically by giving the sailors northern (English) and Scottish
accents). It was much more difficult to
credit these were actual Soviets due to their behavior. I can accept the scientist, Grisenko, played
by David Warner who was clearly having a good time, is into Western music and
culture (heck, how can I complain when he comes on singing Ultravox’s “Vienna”?)
but why does Captain Zhukov keep saying “OK”?
And why does Grisenko ask Clara to sing Duran Duran rather than a
rousing Soviet song? (Since her Russian
is so good.) Only the militant
Stephashin has anything like a historical Soviet perspective, whinging that “American
aggression gets bolder by the day,” and I had to smile when he tried to form an
alliance with the honor-minded Ice Warrior.
(A time-honored Who tradition, n’est-ce pas?) It’s a shame we didn’t have time to get more
character from Zhukov, Stephashin and Grisenko—I was, again, reminded of Captain
Rapelsky, First Mate Rubaish, and Kanensky from Voyage of the Demeter whose
diverse characters stuck on the claustrophobic Demeter eventually gave
way to madness.
I’ve never seen “The Ice Warriors” but I
have seen their later stories and my first NA, believe it or not, was Legacy
by Gary Russell, of which I think I gave rather a harsh review. In hindsight, I think I appreciate it more,
especially given what it does for the Ice Warriors (aw, and I ship Benny and Lord
Savaar). Also, I absolutely love the Big
Finish stories Deimos/Resurrection of Mars.
This is all to say that I am glad that the Ice Warriors have been
revived for the new show. I didn’t
psyche myself up, however, because their 1960s costumes could easily look
ridiculous by today’s standards, and I didn’t want another monster runaround—I wanted
some depth, as I think was achieved in “The Monster of Peladon,” “The Curse of
Peladon,” Legacy, and the two Big Finish stories mentioned (I don’t know
about “Seeds of Death”; that would take some arguing over). I’m pleased to say that Gatiss mercifully and
shrewdly kept the Ice Warrior out of shot and under wraps for an agonizingly
long period of time. I was so
overwhelmed with relief. “Life’s too
short to wait,” mutters the impetuous Soviet sailor with a blow torch, melting
Professor Grisenko’s “mammoth” from the ice.
The Doctor and Clara were on their way to
Las Vegas, and Clara is unfortunately attired in a ball gown (she’s been very
soberly costumed the last few stories).
They find themselves on a “sinking Soviet submarine” after the Ice
Warrior has revived and is blundering around trying to figure out what’s
happened to it. In another nod to old Who,
the Doctor and Clara’s sudden appearance in the middle of a crisis splits
opinion on what to do with them. “Just
listen to him, for God’s sake!” Clara shouts.
The TARDIS, for an entertaining yet not really that well explained
reason, dematerializes. As the Ice
Warrior creeps around corridors, everyone is making an effort to make genuinely
scary television, and it’s pretty good.
The Doctor recognizes Skaldak as a great hero and names the Ice Warriors
as bio-mechanoid Martians. Skaldak has
been frozen for 5,000 years. I’m a bit
confused, given that in previous Who the larger, lumbering Ice Warriors
were like the “muscle” and their svelte comrades, like Lord Savaar for example,
were the “brains.” Skaldak is certainly
of the larger frame, though he succumbs to a cattle prod when electrified.
In logic that seemed to make sense at the
time though I’m no longer sure it does, Clara takes a headset down to the
chained Skaldak and tries to convince him to let the Doctor help him. “Do the
salute like I told you,” says the Doctor.
There are some tantalizing and enjoyable hints at previous Ice Warrior
adventures and mythology as Clara speaks to Skaldak. Everyone (including me) is shocked when
Skaldak forsakes his armor and goes walkabout.
“I’ve never seen one do this before,” says the Doctor. There’s some delightful close-quarters action
as the monster is never shown, which once again overwhelms me with relief. Clara tackles the TARDIS translation matrix,
the world not ending n 1982, and finds herself feeling a bit Tegan-post-“Resurrection”
all of a sudden (well, that was quick) as Skaldak starts picking off the crew
one by one (not for malice like the Stranger in Voyage of the Demeter but
with “forensic” precision). There’s a wonderful
creepy sequence as Skaldak summons his armor, about to arm the nuclear missiles
on the sub and end the Cold War. The
Doctor attempts to talk him out of it, very Pertwee. “Show them another way. Show there is honor in mercy.” When this seems to fail, the Doctor threatens
to blow up the submarine (and everyone on it) before Skaldak can detonate the missile. I do actually believe him. Which is rather incredible as the Eleventh
Doctor has made a lot of threats that I didn’t believe.
Alas, the long run of
not-showing-the-monster comes to the end with a rather disappointing fishy
specimen, though I guess it is similar to an Eighth Doctor Ice Warrior
comic. Then Skaldak is rescued by
summoned Ice Warriors and does not remotely detonate the missiles. Hooray. The Doctor and Clara must then make their way
by some method to the South Pole, where the TARDIS has re-materialized.
I must say I like the look of next week.
This concludes volume VII of View from the
Panopticon.
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